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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



GOSPEL FROM TWO TESTAMENTS 



SERMONS 



international Sunfca^Scbool Xeeeons 



For 1893 



y : 




ED IT EDS BY 



Rkv. B. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, D.D., LX-D., 

PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY 



PROVIDENCE : 
of E). A. Johnson & Company 
1892. 







T P; iLlfcRARY 
< CONGRESS 

Washington 



W6& 



Copyright, 1892, 
By E). Benjamin Andrews. 



PREFACE. 



THE gentlemen who have taken part in the preparation of 
this volume are not on this account to be considered 
champions of Sunday School study according to the 
more or less definite method which has become associated with 
the International Lessons. Other systems may be better. We 
simply found this one in far more common use than any other, 
and wished, if possible, to promote its efficiency. One unfor- 
tunate impression cultivated by this mode of biblical study we 
have done our best to dissipate : the impression, namely, that 
the various portions and books of the Bible are all of the same 
importance. While no verse of the Sacred Volume is without 
value, not all is pure gold, as so much is. To assist in correct- 
ing this mischievous error of reducing all Scripture to one and 
the same level in respect to edifying power, the expositions in 
this volume have been made honestly historical. The Old 
Testament has not been forced to anticipate the New, but has 
been left to voice naturally, in its own way, such instruction as 
it has to give. By this procedure, it is believed, much is 
gained, not only for biblical scholarship, but as well in depth 
of religious impression. 

The aim of these sermons is to promote a sound and cool 
understanding of Holy Scripture, always the primary purpose 



PREFACE. 



of good Sunday School teaching, at the same time keeping up 
a pronounced homiletical interest. The book is thus intended 
to aid two classes of biblical students, teachers in Sunday 
Schools and ministers engaged in preaching. It is never quite 
easy to further both these interests in the same discourse, 
though all genuine expository sermons attempt this ; and in 
some of the passages discussed upon the following pages the 
difficulty has proved so far insurmountable that the keen reader 
will think one intention or the other more or less subordinated. 
Critics may perhaps be willing to account for such and all other 
shortcomings in our work by the refractoriness of the scriptural 
passages on which the sermons thought faulty are based. At 
any rate we are sure that judges of expository preaching will 
find in the volume many rich and model specimens of this. 

Minute exegesis we have entirely avoided. Commentaries, 
Bible Dictionaries and the innumerable Sunday School Lesson 
Helps furnish enough of this. We seek to perform a much 
more important service, that of placing the lesson for each 
Sunday in its proper historical setting and of exhibiting its 
thought in its wide and general relations, doctrinal or practical. 
How far we have succeeded in such a purpose readers will 
judge for themselves. We shall be surprised if these sermons 
are not found exceedingly helpful in this respect. 

The lessons of each quarter form a beautiful unity. Those 
of the first quarter are historical, sketching in a most interesting 
way Israel's career after the captivity. The studies of the 
second quarter present some of the Old Testament's finest 
moral teachings. The third group offers an entertaining 



PREFACE. V 

resumb of Paul's missionary labors after his call to Europe. 
The fourth, more doctrinal, is taken up with fresh studies in the 
epistolary parts of the New Testament. 

Interest in the book and in the scriptures which it treats 
will be greatly increased if the whole matter, or at least that for 
each quarter, is read through rapidly. The detailed study of 
each lesson will afterwards be not only easier but far more 
profitable. 

May this volume do much to stimulate love for the Bible and 
to further the christian graces in all who read it. 

The Editor. 
Brown University, August 8, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



First Quarter. 



ISRAEL AFTER THE CAPTIVITY. 
Lesson Page 

I. January i. Returning from the Captivity. Ezra 

i: I-" 3 

Rev. Professor S. Burnham, D.D. 

II. January 8. Rebuilding the Temple. Ezraiii:i-i3. 10 
Professor Shailer Mathews. 

III. January 15. Encouraging the People. Haggai 

ii: 1-9 19 

Rev. Professor Philip A. Nordell, D.D. 

IV. January 22. Joshua the High Priest. Zechariah 

iii: 1-10 28 

Professor George Rice Hovey. 

V. January 29. The Spirit of the Lord. Zechariah 

iv: 1-10 37 

Rev. E. M. Poteat. 

VI. February 5. Dedicating the Temple. Ezra vi: 

14-22 46 

Rev. A. S. Coats. 
VII. February 12. Nehemiah's Prayer. Nehemiah i: 

i-ii 54 

Rev. Frederick L. Anderson. 

VIII. February 19. Rebuilding the Wall. Nehemiah 

iv: 9-21 62 

Rev. Thos. S. Barbour. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. Vll 

Lesson Page 

IX. February 26. Reading the Law. Neheniiah viii: 

1-12 71 

Rev. Thomas E. Bartlett. 

X. March 5. Keeping the Sabbath. Nehemiahxiii: 

15-22 80 

Rev. Edward Holyoke. 

XI. March 12. Esther Before the King. Esther iv: 

10-17; v.: 1-3 89 

Rev. F. W. Ryder. 

XII. March 19. Temperance Lesson. Timely Admoni t 

Tions. Proverbs xxiii: 15-23 . 98 
Rev. George E. Horr, Jr. 

XII. March 19. M^wwaryZ^ww. The Vanity of Gra- 
ven Images. Isaiah xliv: 9-20. 104 
Rev. W. S. Ayers. 



Second Quarter. 

OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS. 



I. April 2. The Afflictions of Job. Job ii: 1-10 . 117 

Rev. F. E. Dewhurst. 

I. April 2. Easter Lesson. The Resurrection of 

Christ. Matthew xxviii: 1-10 . 125 

Rev. Professor D. F. Estes. 

II. April 9. Afflictions Sanctified. Job v: 17-27 134 

Rev. H. H. Peabody, D.D. 

III. April 16. Job's Appeal To God. Job xxiii: 1-10 . 142 

Rev. George E. Merrill. 

IV. April 23. Job's Confession and Restoration. 

Job xlii: 1-10 150 

Rev. Edward Judson, D.D. 

V. April 30. Wisdom's Warning. Proverbs i: 20-33 158 

Rev. B. A. Greene. 



Vlll 1ABLF. OF CONTENTS. 

L:--:n Page 

VI. May 7. The Value of Wisdom. Proverbs iii: 11-24 l6 7 
Rev. Professor J. R. Sampey, D.D. 

VII. May 14. Fruits of Wisdom. Proverbs xii: 1-15 176 
H. C. Vedder. 

VIII. May 21. Against Intemperance. Proverbs xxiii: 

29-35 1S4 

The Editor. 

IX. May 2S. The Excellent Woman. Proverbs xxxi: 

10-51 192 

Rev. C. H. Wats:.:. 

X. June 4. Reverence and Fidelity. Ecclesiastes 

v: 1-12 201 

Rev. E. P. Tuller. 

XI. Tune 11. The Creator Remembered. Ecclesi- 

astes xii: :--, 15. 14 209 

Rev. J. F. Elder, D.D. 

XII. June iS. Messiah's Kingdom. Malachi iii; 1-12. 217 

Rev. R H. Pi::. D.D. 



Tfyird Quarter. 

LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF PAUL. 



I. July 2. Paul Called to Europe. Acts xvi: 6-15 

Rev. Professor B. O. True. D.D. 

II. July 9. Paul at Philippi. Acts xvi: 19-51 . . . 238 

Rev. E. K. Chandler, D.D. 
III. July 16. Paul at Athens. Acts xvii: 22-31 . . . 246 

Rev. C. J. Baldwin. 



IV. July 23. Paul at Corinth. Acts xviii: 1-11 . . 
Rev. Professor Rush Rhees. 



: rr 



V. July 50. Paul AT Ephesus. Acts xix: 1-12 . . . 26} 

Rev W W Everts 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 

Lesson Page 

VI. August 6. Paul at Miletus. Acts xx: 22-35 . . 271 

Rev. J. R. Gow. 

VII. August 13. Paul at Jerusalem. Acts xxi: 27-39 2 79 

Rev. Professor J. M. English, D.D. 

VIII. August 20. Paul Before Felix. Acts xxi v: 10-25 287 

Rev. Thomas E. Bartlett. 

IX. August 27. Paul Before Agrippa. Acts xxvi: 

19-32 296 

Rev. H. M. King, D.D. 

X. September 3. Paul Shipwrecked. Acts xxvii: 

30-44 305 

Rev. W. S. Apsey, D.D. 

XI. September 10. Paul at Rome. Acts xxviii: 20-31 313 
Rev. John H. Mason. 

XII. September 17. Personal Responsibility. Ro- 
mans xiv: 12-23 3 21 

Rev. T. D. Anderson. 



pourtl? Quarter. 

STUDIES IN THE EPISTLES. 

I. October 1. The Power of the Gospel. Romans 

i: 8-17 333 

Rev. James T. Dickinson. 

II. Octobers. Redemption in Christ. Romans iii: 

19-26 342 

The Editor. 

III. October 15. Justification by Faith. Romans v: 

J" 11 35i 

Rev. George B. Gow, D.D. 

IV, October 22. Christian Living. Romans xii: 1-15 360 

Rev. Wm. M. Lawrence D.D. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I/ESSON 

V. October*,. Abstinence for the Sakb of Gth - '*" 
ERS. I Corinthians viii: i-i, , fi _ 

Rev. Professor R. s. Colwell, D.D. 3 7 

VI. Novembers. The Resurrection. t Corinthians 
xv: 12-26 .... 
Rev. Charles A. Reese. " ' ' ' 37 

VII. November 12. The; Grace of Ltberatity. n Co- 

rinthians viii: 1-12 o 

Rev. Clark M. Brink. 3 4 

VIII. November , 9 . Imitation oe Christ. Ephesians 

iv: 20-32 

Rev. C. R. Henderson, D.D. 392 

IX. Novembers. The Christian Homs. Colossians 
iii: 12-25 
Rev. C. C. Brown. 3 " 

X. December 3 • Gratefui, Obedience. Jamesi: l6 -2 7 4 o8 
Rev. President B. I,. Whitman. 

XL December 10. The Heavendy Inheritance. I 
Peter i: 1-12 .... 
Rev. Professor Wm. N. Clarke, D.D. ' 

XII. December 17. The Glorified Saviour. Revela- 
tion i: 9-20 

Rev. J. v. Garton. ° 

XIII. December 24. Missionary Lesson. The Great In- 
vitation. Revelation xxii: 8-21 4,, 
Rev. Prescott F. Jernegan. 

XIII. December 24. Christmas Lesson. Thf Birth of 

Jesus. Matthew ii: i-n AAl 

Rev. H. W. Pinkham. 4 



THE FIRST QUARTER. 



ISRAEL AFTER THE CAPTIVITY. 



I. 


January i. 


II. 


8. 


III. 


15. 


IV. 


41 22. 


V. 


29. 


VI. 


February 5. 


VII. 


12. 


VIII. 


19. 


IX. 


26. 


X. 


March 5. 


XI. 


12. 


XII. 


19. 


xni. 


19- 



"Returning from the Captivity." — Ezra i: 

i-ii. Rev. Prof. S. Burnham, D. D. 
"Rebuilding the Temple." — Ezra iii: 1-13. 

Prof. S. Mathews. 
"Encouraging the People." — Hag. ii: 1-9. 

REV. Prof. P. A. Nordeli,, D. D. 
"Joshua the High-Priest." — Zech. iii: 1-10. 

Prof. G. R. Hovey. 
"The Spirit of the Lord." — Zech. iv: 1-10. 

REV. E- M. PoTEAT. 
"Dedicating the Temple." — Ezra vi: 14-22. 

Rev. A. S. Coats. 
"Nehemiah's Prayer." — Neh. i: 1-11. Rev. 

F. L. Anderson. 
"Rebuilding the Wall." — Neh. iv: 9-21. 

Rev. T. S. Barbour. 
"Readingthe Law." — Neh. viii: 1-12. Rev. 

THOS. M. BARTI.ETT. 
"Keeping the Sabbath." — Neh. xiii: 15-22. 

Rev. Edw. Hoi^yoke. 
"Esther before the King." — Esth. iv: 10-17; 

v: 1-3. Rev. F. W. Ryder. 
" Timely Admonitions. " — Prov. xxiii: 15-23. 

REV. G. E. Horr, Jr. 
"The Vanity of Graven Images." — Isa. 

xliv: 9-20. Rev, W, S. Ayres, 



lessen? I. January i. 



RETURNING FROM THE CAPTIVITY. 
Ezra i: i-ii. 

By Rev. Professor S. BURNHAM, D. D. 

WITH the book of Ezra begins the history of the New 
Israel. Fifty years had passed, fifty weary years of 
exile, since, in 586 B. C, the army of Nebuchadnez- 
zar, king of Babylon, had given the holy city of Jerusalem to 
the flames, and had broken down its walls. Then Nebuzoradan, 
the general of the Babylonian monarch, had carried away cap- 
tive all the nation except the very poorest of the people, whom 
he left to till the land as the servants of his sovereign. (2 Kings 
xxv. 8-12.) All these years Israel had borne the yoke of cap- 
tivity in a strange land. The promised inheritance had lain 
desolate and waste, without temple or altar. Pious souls among 
the exiles were sorrowing over the desolation of the nation, and 
were praying, " O Lord, let thine anger and thy fury be turned 
away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain. ' ' ( Daniel ix. 1 6 . ) 
At last, the time to set the captives free and to found the 
new commonwealth had come. The discipline of the captivity 
had done its work. A purified and pious remnant had been 
prepared by the woes and lessons of the exile, that might serve 
for the beginning of the new state and for the foundation of 
the kingdom of God. Far below what their God desired 
them to be, were they, indeed. Never did they rise to realize 
the ideals that, according to the prophetic hopes and teachings, 



4 RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. [First Quarter. 

were possible for them. Nevertheless they were a better Israel 
than the Israel of old • and with at least many of them a new 
covenant could be made. (Jer. xxxi. 31.) 

The historical event that made possible the release of the 
Jewish exiles, was the overthrow of the Babylonian power by 
the Persians under the leadership of Cyrus, their king. Scarcely 
had Cyrus added the Babylonian empire to his territory, when, 
in the same year, he issued the decree for the release of the 
Jewish captives, of which we have an account in the first 
verses (vv. 1-4) of our chapter. It is scarcely to be sup- 
posed that we have in these verses the exact words of the 
Persian king. Formerly it was thought that Cyrus, being a 
monotheistic Persian, recognized in the Jehovah of Israel the 
true and one God whom he worshipped, and therefore spoke 
as a believer in the sovereignty of Jehovah. But late discov- 
eries of tablet and cylinder inscriptions seem to show that Cyrus 
was an Elamite rather than a Persian, and therefore, presum- 
ably, a polytheist. If this was the case, he would hardly have 
used the terms in which his proclamation is given in the 
chapter we are considering. It is not impossible that Daniel, 
who, as we read (Dan. vi. 28), " prospered in the reign of 
Cyrus the Persian," may have shown to the king out of the 
book of Isaiah (Isa. xlv. xlvi) that he had been divinely ap- 
pointed to set Israel free ; and that Cyrus, who was tolerant of 
all faiths, and claims, in his own words, to have been ordained 
by the gods of Babylon to execute their wrath upon the king of 
Babylon, may have accepted the commission as a divine trust. 
Even in this case the words of his decree, we seem obliged to 
suppose, have come to us colored by the thinking and vocab- 
ulary of the Jewish historian. But so we get only the more 
clearly set before us the great truth to which the historical 
events narrated in the chapter bear witness, and which it 
seems to be the author's aim to teach us. Nor is there any 
violence done to the real meaning and force of the royal 



Lesson 1.] RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. 5 

decree. Its polytheistic coloring, or its imperfect monotheism, 
is simply replaced by a shading that attributes events to that 
Source to which alone an inspired man could be content to 
allow himself or his readers to refer them. In this way, he 
accomplishes most surely his purpose to lead men to read 
history aright. For he will teach us, in this chapter, that the 
noisy and complicated machinery of history does not find its 
motive power in itself. An unseen but omnipotent hand 
guides all the complicated motions to secure the end for 
which it furnishes the power. History, in our author's view of 
it, is but the working of a Present, Living God. 

So he shows us : 

First, that God is present and active in history. 

To him, the downfall of Jerusalem, the long years of exile? 
the rise of the Persian empire, the overthrow of the Babylonian 
power, the decree of Cyrus, are only the means by which the 
word of the Lord is made true (v. i). These are the works of 
God, wrought that history may reproduce his word and his 
thought. God, to our author, is no philosophical abstraction, 
no remote first cause having nothing or little to do with the 
daily life of the world. But he is an actual presence, a real 
power, an "immanent" personality. What is done in the life 
of the world, he does. He leads to victory the nation that 
conquers. He tramples underfoot the power that is overthrown. 
He releases the captives ; he wipes away tears from weeping 
eyes. How wisely our author sees ; how like a soul touched 
from on high he reads. For life and history have no meaning 
unless they are the creation of a present, living God. There is 
no enduring of the burdens and woes of the world by a soul 
that thinks, except as seeing in them him who is invisible. But 
not less real because unseen. For always and everywhere the 
things unseen are the most real things. 

Secondly, our author would teach us that God is present and 
active in the history of all nations. 



6 fcfcrtJRNiNG PROM CAPTIVITY. [First Quarter. 

It is not alone in Judah that God abides ; but he dwells in 
Persia as well. The heart of the king of Persia is in his hands 
no less than the heart of David or Solomon (v. i). Nor is 
even this the limit of the divine presence and working. His 
power and his life are felt in all the nations of the earth, although 
men do not always recognize the power that shapes their desti- 
nies (v. 2). This truth it is harder for men to receive than 
even the fact of the real presence in history of a living God. 
Israel was taught it in vain. From the time it was announced 
to Abraham that all the nations of the earth should be blessed 
through his seed, God strove to make Israel understand that it 
was the elect nation for the sake of all nations, his servant to 
make him known to the world, and to bring the world to recog- 
nize him as the God of all the earth. Rut the divine choice 
was only made the occasion of a false national pride ; and 
divine blessings were transformed into the occasion of a 
national ruin. Were the men of Israel sinners above others in 
all this ? Do not we also too often fall into the same blindness, 
and the same false pride of race ? It is so easy to think that 
our land is more than all other lands " God's country," and that 
the Anglo-Saxon race is, in a special sense, the darling of heaven. 
It is so easy and so natural to suppose that God has less love 
and less care for other lands and other races than for ours. In 
fact, is it not this false pride of race, and this blind assumption 
of God as all our own, that often and largely stand in the way of 
victorious missionary effort ? Are we not remiss in sending the 
gospel to other nations just because we do not believe that it 
can be to them the power of God as truly and mightily as 
it was to our savage and acorn-eating ancestors? Let our 
chapter remind us anew that God has made of one blood all 
nations, and that, in all, he dwells and works, loving all with 
the same fatherly love out of the same great, divine heart. 

Thirdly, our author would teach us that God is present and 
active in the souls of individual men. 



tESSON I.] RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. 7 

To him God is not simply a general presence and force in 
life. He does not merely work the great movements and 
mighty catastrophes in the history of nations. The desires and 
purposes of individual souls are as truly his work as the events 
of history. In fact, it is by his work in individual souls that he 
causes the great historical movements of the world's life. It is 
he who creates in Cyrus the willingness to let the captives go 
free (v. i). It is he who creates in the exiles the desire to 
return to the ancient land and to build again the house of God 
(v. 5). Whatever is best and noblest in our thoughts and our 
desires, our author would have us understand, is but the echo 
in our souls of the voice of God. How comforting and encour- 
aging is such a view of life ! We all may be the channels of 
the divine power, the hearts and hands by which God will 
touch and move the world. If we will but open our souls to 
him, he will use us as the beginnings of new and better things 
among men. He will stir up within us new desires and new 
purposes, that shall issue in acts by which he will create a new 
world, and bring to pass his own great purposes. Thus shall 
we be, in the truest and best sense, workers together with God. 

Our author, however, is not content with setting before us 
this truth of a present and acting, a living God, in these varied 
ways. He wishes us to see why God is thus ever present and 
working. So 

Fourthly, he teaches us that God is thus present in history 
and in the souls of men, for the sake of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 

Cyrus is charged to build the house of the Lord which is in 
Jerusalem (v. 2). Men volunteer, and gold and silver are 
contributed, with the same end in view (vv. 5-12). But 
the temple at Jerusalem was the earthly centre and symbol of 
the Kingdom of Heaven. Poets had sung of it as the earthly 
abode of Jehovah. Prophets had depicted the coming king- 
dom of God as encircling it and making it the centre of its 



8 RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. [First Quarter. 

life and blessedness. In the prophetic vision it stood upon its 
lofty mountain raised above all the high hills of the country, 
while to it the nations were streaming as the source of their 
peace and their joys. Rebuilt, and forming the centre of the 
life of the new state, the glory that it should have would ex- 
ceed all the glory of the magnificent temple erected by Solo- 
mon. However, their new state was to be no merely earthly 
power, but the Kingdom of Heaven itself. So, the exile oc- 
curred, and Cyrus set the captives free ; Babylon fell, and all 
the kingdoms of the world came into the power of Cyrus, that 
the Kingdom of Heaven might be set up in the world. God 
was in the world, and in the souls of men, because his king- 
dom was to come. Even so is it to-day. Only now the king- 
dom of heaven is among us, and it is its perfection that is to 
come. The King is ruling on earth from his throne in the 
heavens ; and God among men puts down one and sets up 
another, that the coming perfection may be hastened. For 
this, armies march, and navies sail ; for this, wars are made, 
and peace is declared. It is nothing that men do not see 
what God is doing among them. They have always been blind 
to his presence, have always been saying of his Christ, " is not 
this the son of Joseph ? " 

Such is the teaching of our chapter. The great truth it sets 
before us of the presence and activity of God in history and in 
the soul of man, cannot be too much or too often emphasized 
in the day in which we live. Our age is materialistic, and 
believes far too much in the sole reality of the things that can 
be seen or felt. To it, money, armies, fleets, machinery, are 
actual and acting powers ; but not God. Or, if not material- 
istic, it is too philosophic ; and, with its multitude of second 
causes, it feels no need of the presence of a first and final 
cause. God is not in all the thoughts of men of this age, 
scarcely in any of them. The fact of God's real presence in 
history and in the soul, as the true cause of all that is good and 



Lesson I.] RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. 9 

gracious in life, needs to be more clearly seen and more firmly 
believed in, if life is to be saved from sordidness and littleness. 
Nothing will make men generous, brave, strong, and self-for- 
getful, like the sense of a present God acting with and in 
them. Besides, only the conviction that God is in history 
and in the soul, will enable us to hope for the realization of 
the superhuman ideals of the kingdom of heaven, and make us 
willing to do and to suffer for their realization. The trans- 
formation of this world, foul with sin and laden with misery, 
where men devour one another in both body and soul, where 
lust and crime, debauchery and cruelty, have, according to all 
seeming, their own way, — the making of this world, but little 
better than hell itself, into a place where all the sweetness and 
cleanness and blessedness of heaven shall repeat themselves, 
and men shall live the life of God, is a work so tremendous 
that it will never be done unless God is ever present in history 
and in the soul. Only as we see God present and active on 
earth can we have heart to pray, " Thy kingdom come." 



(essoi) II. JaQdary 8. 



REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 
Ezra Hi: 1-13. 

By Professor SHAIIyBR MATHEWS, Waterviiae, Me. 

AN interest not wholly wanting in pathos, belongs to the 
returning settlers on the deserted and impoverished hills 
of Judea. Few in numbers when compared with the 
rich bourgeoisie comfortably settled in their shops at Babylon, 
established by a far-sighted king as a buffer between Egypt and 
his own empire ; the re-founders of Jerusalem united the devo- 
tion of enthusiasts with the dangers of a forlorn hope. The 
history of the first twenty-five years of these returned captives 
abundantly shows how the desperate circumstances into which 
they were thrust quenched their religious fervor and blurred 
the noble purposes with which they re-entered the promised 
land. But in the first few months of their struggle with pov- 
erty their life was marked by an energy that has made the 
world forget those later years which had need of the drastic 
reforms of Ezra. 

It was in the first flush of this early enthusiasm that the new 
settlers undertook the great object of their return — the re- 
establishment of their national faith. Nourished on the visions 
of Ezekiel, themselves the holy remnant, bearing as national 
vicars, the sorrows and grief of their entire people, their 
thoughts centered less on their political than on their religious 
future. The altar and the temple, not the walls and the 



Lesson It.] REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 1 1 

palaces, were the first objects of their care. Before they had 
been more than a few weeks in their new homes, the great 
altar of burnt sacrifice was rebuilt, with foundations double the 
dimensions of its predecessor. In October, 536 B. C, it was 
consecrated, and thereafter the morning and the evening sacri* 
fices were offered regularly. 

Something less than a year later the foundations of the new 
Temple were laid. It was a moment of supreme anticipation. 
The old men might sob at the thought of the sanctuary of 
their past, but the young men saw only the nobler future when 
their suffering people should see of the travail of its soul and 
be satisfied. It was the enthusiasm of inexperience. The 
years of struggle with jealous neighbors and official delays, the 
coarsening of religious devotion, the poverty, the sin, that were 
all to come before the roof should close over the foundations, 
were hid. To their excited minds the religion of the patriarchs, 
of Moses, of the glorious kings, was to live again in the renewed 
Israel. The burst of song brought back their Psalmist ; the 
priests clothed in the sacred robes, brought back their Law- 
giver. Like the Phenix from his ashes, the new Judaism was 
springing from the old, and the shout drowned the weeping. 

The returned captives of Judah are commonly likened to 
the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay. The comparison, though 
by no means complete, is not inapt. The Puritans sought 
escape from unhealthful religious surroundings in a new land ; 
the Jews sought the same in an old. The Puritans transplanted, 
the Jews re-established political forms. But — and this is 
fundamental — both Puritans and Jews alike in seeking to re- 
introduce a plan of worship, turned to the distant past as the 
repository of religion pure and undefiled. The faith that took 
root in New England and the faith that took root in New 
Judah were not new, but renewed. Both maintained a conti- 
nuity of religious life. 

The desire to authenticate reforms by appeal to the past is 



12 kEBUILDING THE TEMPLE. [First Quarter. 

universal. Periods of revolution, at least in their earliest stages^ 
are periods of restoration. Louis XVI. of France, before he 
became citizen Louis Capet, was the restorer of French lib- 
erty. The American colonies began revolution by demanding 
early privileges. The visionary of to-day declares that society 
and government are usurpers. Every nation has had its Golden 
Age, just as it expects its Golden Age. And, usually, too, this 
Golden Age lies in the distant, not in the immediate past. 
Reform adopts the political principle of the mediaeval repub- 
lics of Italy, " Hate your neighbor, love your neighbor's neigh- 
bor." We are told to find models not in our fathers, but in 
our grandfathers — preferably in their grandfathers. 

In nothing does this recurrence to an authoritative past oftener 
and more decidedly show itself than in matters of religion. The 
Catholic Church may appeal to an infallible contemporaneous 
Pope, but the Pope himself will look to the inspired fathers. 
The devotee of the Church of England looks not to Henry 
VIII., but to a primitive episcopacy whose rights the Roman 
curia has usurped. Calvin and Luther looked back to Augus- 
tine and thence to Paul. Denominations appeal to their creeds, 
Christendom to an ancient Bible. And, to crown all, comes 
the man without religion, who looks back over church, creed 
and teacher, to find religion purest in the pre-historic man who 
trembled at the thunder and his own strange dreams. 

Of course there are mistakes in all this. The past was not 
purer than the present. The nineteenth century is not nearer 
millennial goodness because more under Satan's control. He 
is a blind interpreter who sees only good in the past and only 
evil in the present. But, after all, this desire to bring the pres- 
ent into connection with the past and to make the worship of 
to-day reproduce the worship of yesterday, is not so much a 
tribute to the blind veneration of mere age, as it is the outcome 
of the law of religious development. There is not one of the 
great religions in the world to-day that has not passed through 



Lesson II.] REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 1 3 

a period of reform when the cry has been, ''Back to the sim- 
plicity and purity of our fathers' faith." India has had her 
Guadama and her Chesub Kunder Seb ; China, her Confucius ; 
the Jews, their Hezekiah and their Ezra ; Arabia, its Mahomet ; 
the Roman Church, its Dollinger; Protestantism, its Luther 
and its Maurice. Each one of these reformers has endeavored 
to purify, to rejuvenate a corrupt and decrepit faith by the infu- 
sion of forgotten spiritual truth. 

A study of the renewal of the Jewish religion under Jeshua 
and Zerubbabel discloses two characteristics that belong to all 
similar periods. 

First : — Periods of religious renewal are destructive. Reform 
is the outgrowth of abuse. The Jews went into the captivity 
emasculated by idolatry. They returned extreme Monotheists. 
No Jew took that four months' journey across the deserts with- 
out strong love for Jehovah. The influence of the captivity 
had been to consolidate and intensify the national faith in one 
Supreme Being. Idolatry and idolaters thereafter were spo- 
radic growths. The spirit with which they re-laid the founda- 
tions of the altar was not the spirit of Zedekiah, but the spirit 
of Abraham. 

But it is worth our notice that this apparent leap over a 
thousand years was no real break in the religious life of the 
Jews. Idolatry, not the renewal of the true worship, marked 
the break. The true and continuous religious life of the Jew- 
ish people is not to be found in the annals of the prophets of 
Baal and idolatrous kings. It lay in the hearts of unnoticed 
thousands who kept alive the faith that their rulers had for- 
saken. The real history of God's church lies not in the suc- 
cession of councils and bishops, in the struggles of Popes and 
Emperors, in Papal corruption and Spanish inquisitions — but 
in the hearts of the mass of worshipers, in the actual Chris- 
tianity of every age, as often in sects as in the Church. If a 
man will find the true Christianity of the Middle Ages he must 



14 REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. [First Quarter. 

look through the ambitions of prelates into their purposes, 
through an imperial Church into worshiping races. There is 
a cleavage line in religious history. On the one side is the 
essential Christianity ; on the other are the local and adaptive 
teachings and forms. Seldom is this line wholly invisible. 
Sometimes it can be detected running through an organized 
faith, and we have the permanent element represented by the 
schismatics — the seven thousand who had not bowed to 
Baal : the returning Jews, the Donatists, the Waldenses, the 
Non- Conformists, the Puritans. Occasionally we see it running 
across individual experience, as in the career of a Bernard of 
Clairvaux, a Hildebrand, or an Innocent, in all of whom the 
profoundest Christian spirit was joined to an intensely worldly 
ambition. When reformation or conversion discovers this 
cleavage line, strikes manfully along it, and splits off the abuse, 
that which remains is the true religious life. The untrue, the 
ephemeral alone is lost. The destruction of abuse is not the 
destruction of a faith. If the Jews left their idolatry in Persia, 
they brought back the songs of David. 

Especially to-day do we need to remember this distinction. 
Criticism is the Babylon of traditional belief. It will separate 
the essential from the accidental. It is true that, in his zeal 
for truth or his desire for originality, the critic may attack the 
permanent, and it may seem more than once that it is not the 
abuse or the extra-belief that is threatened, but the truth itself 
But such apprehension is needless. The microscopic criticism 
of this century in New Testament fields has already resulted in 
strengthening faith. It is not too much to expect that the 
present equally severe criticism of the Old Testament will 
result in a more rational understanding of its profound religious 
teachings. That everything which the past believed will 
remain, is impossible. The past overloaded its faith. But to 
fear that the final outcome of a search for truth will be the loss 
of anything that is true, is to believe in the eternity of lies. 



Lesson II.] REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 1 5 

After the scalpel has finished its work, it will be sun-clear that 
the life is left, that nothing but parasitic growth has been 
removed. 

If it should be proved that the book of Jonah is legend, 
that the composite book of Genesis contains myths, that the 
Mosaic legislation does not entirely antedate Ezra, that the 
second half of Isaiah was written generations after the first, that 
Chronicles is much later than the exile : in a word, if the 
results upon which the more conservative higher criticism has 
united should be shown to be true, the spiritual teaching that 
lies in the experience of the Jewish race, the deep religious 
inspiration that breathes from its songs, the lessons of the 
immanence and love of Jehovah — all these, the real nexus of the 
Christian and the Jewish faith, would remain. A destructive 
criticism, so far as its processes are governed by a desire for 
truth and corrected by time, can only cleave the untrue from 
the true, the transitory from the eternal elements of our faith. 

Second : — Destruction is simply preparatory. Its mission is 
to give freer scope to a developing religious life. Periods of 
religious renascence mark stages in religious growth. The 
permanent element in religion is not a statue whose limits are 
set by the removal of the encasing marble ; it is an organism, 
demanding and permitting the removal of parasites, because it 
is itself developing and is able to replace the diseased with 
healthy tissue. The old truth that re-appears after the removal 
of abuse, is not unchanged — it is a developed truth. 

The Jewish church of the return sought to re-produce the 
church of the early kingdom, but accurate re-production was 
impossible. Waiving all discussion as to how much of the 
traditional Mosaic legislation is post-exilic, the simple historical 
fact remains that the church of the return, as it was developed 
under Jeshua and Ezra, marks a new stage in the religious life 
of the Jews. The worship inaugurated when the foundations 
of the temple were laid, was marked by a punctilious cere- 



1 6 REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. [First Quarter. 

monial, a developed ritualism, an enthusiastic monotheism, a 
systematic theology, a codification of law, and a devotion to 
the national faith, to which the Jew of David's and Solomon's 
time was utterly unaccustomed. The system of Ezra was that 
of Moses, but developed. The enlarged altar and the re- 
modelled temple were typical of an enlarged and a re-modelled 
system. 

The history of every religious reformation is similar. A man 
first awakes to the fact that abuses have been sanctioned which 
have been paralyzing a truth once mighty. He attacks the 
abuses ; he lays bare the truth that had nerved men of old to 
martyrdom and sainthood ; he attempts, by handling this re- 
discovered truth, to accomplish similar results in his own time. 
And the very first application of the old teaching to the new 
problem, the very first attempt at re-stating the old truth, shows 
to him that absolute identity between the truth as it was in one 
age and as it is in his own age, is out of the question. It is 
not simply that the times have changed and that the needs are 
new. The religious instincts and conciousness of men — the 
real content of religion — have been developing. Truth as it 
exists in God is unchangeable and unchanging. Truth as it 
incarnates itself in human experience is ever developing, for 
religious truth is the correlative of religious experience. 

It is a truism that the formulas of one age must be re-adapted 
to a new. But the grounds for this need more careful attention 
than they commonly receive. Too often has attention been 
centered upon the standards and creeds — the secretions of the 
religious life, — rather than upon the life itself. It is of course, 
in a way, easy, by a comparison of the decisions of various 
councils, to trace the development of some central Christian 
doctrine like that of Christ's divinity. But it is an exceedingly 
difficult, if not an impossible task to trace the developing 
Christian consciousness that lay back of and found its expres- 
sion in these decrees and articles. Yet the dynamic history of 



tESSdN It.] REBUILDING THE TEMfLE. 1 7 

Christianity lies in the developing religious conciousness. To 
compare the religion of the nineteenth century with that of the 
eighteenth century, we do not need to go to the minutes of 
religious bodies or the decisions of synods and councils — the 
precipitates of the theological chemistry. The religious history 
lay not so much in the formulations which the best Christian 
thought and Christian experience could make, as in that expe- 
rience; in men; in religious society that gave rise to these 
formulations. 

In times of reformation, this religious life is momentarily 
evident. For a few months or years the processes that have 
been going on slowly and unnoticed — processes which must 
ever remain untraceable — burst into light. The nerve centres 
of the Church, relieved from the paralysis of abuse, suddenly 
leap into intense action. It is the old life and yet the new 
life : — old, because it found its beginning in the far distant 
past; new, because it re-appears at the end of a period of 
development. It will, it is true, in its turn soon bury itself in 
attempted deliverances and formulations of its newly awakened 
self-consciousness. It will itself lose something of its first fresh 
vigor. It will itself need future renovation. But the advance 
it marks will never become retrogression. From the days in 
which the Church poured itself northward into the German 
forests, and leavened the wild conquerors of Roman Europe 
with the teachings of Christ, there has never been an ebb in 
the great tide of religious life. Some waves have run farther 
up the shore, some, farther towards the sea, but the tide has 
ever risen. Even periods of apparent reaction are periods of 
consolidation. The eighteenth century with its Diderot, and 
its Hume, and its Voltaire, gave rise to the nineteenth century 
with its Christian philanthropists and Christian catholics. 

It may be objected that the Christianity of Christ antedates 
the Christianity of to-day, and that, in comparison with his 
supreme holiness, all modern religious life is poor and mean. 

2 



1 8 REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. [£irst Quaker. 

The objection is a fair one. But it is simply new testimony to 
the truth of the law of Christian evolution. So far as science has 
been able to formulate the law of physical evolution, the most 
perfect representatives of a genus often come far in advance 
of the genus itself. They are the type to the likeness of which, 
after a long period of slow evolutionary process, the genus at 
last attains. 

The Christianity of Christ is the type of the Christianity ot 
the race. The life of Jesus is the typical expression of the 
religious forces of humanity. Thus far he stands unique, but 
the growth of the divine forces in humanity which in his one 
case found their perfect and typical embodiment, are working 
out in the race an ever approximating Christian genus. The 
period is long ; the process is painful ; but the time is coming 
when we shall be like him. Each new phase of the application 
of Christianity to the race, — Charlemagne with his Franks, the 
Church with its monks, the Crusades, the Reformation, the 
Methodist revival, the humanistic struggles of the Christian 
missionary and social reformer, mark corresponding stages in 
the process by which Christianity is bringing men and ^ society 
into an ever increasing likeness to its type. The end already is 
clear to the eye of faith. We know only that we are now the 
sons of God, and though it does not yet appear what we shall 
be, yet we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him. 

Looked at in this broader horizon, the re-establishment of the 
Jewish faith by the returned captives, grows full of suggestions. 
With them the period of renewal showed alike the destruction 
of unhealthy religious tendencies, and a new stage in the growth 
of the healthy. So far as an isolated historical fact may teach 
anything, the re-building of the Temple may teach us alike 
courage in the face of the present war of scholars, certainty as 
to the growth of a purer and more Christlike Christianity. 



lessor^ III. January 15. 



ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. 
Haggai it: i-p. 

By Rev. Professor PHILIP A. NORDEUv, D. D., Chicago, Iu,. 

THE recovery of the Jews from the disasters attending the 
Babylonian captivity was necessarily slow and painful. 
The handful of patriots who returned with Zerubbabel 
were poor, weak, and despised. They found Jerusalem and 
the temple heaps of ruins, covered with weeds and rubbish. 
The first two years witnessed the rebuilding of the altar, the 
re-establishment of the burnt sacrifices, and the laying of the 
foundation of the second temple amid the liveliest conflict of 
emotions — uncontrollable outbreaks of joy and praise from the 
young, and of sobs and tears from the aged, who contrasted 
the insignificant present with memories of the resplendent past. 
The enterprise, which was speedily obstructed by their enemies, 
was not resumed until nearly fifteen years later, at the inspired 
call of Haggai and Zechariah. The Samaritans, who hoped 
again to check the work, were themselves ordered by the king of 
Persia to render prompt and generous assistance. 

In point of literary style, of freshness, sublimity, and strength, 
Haggai touches the low-water mark of Old Testament prophecy. 
His oracles are narrow as to both time and scope. The for- 
mer is limited to four months in the second year of Darius, the 
latter to the rebuilding of the temple. His first oracle stirred 
the rulers and the people to begin this task anew. Only three 



±6 ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. [First Quarter. 

or four weeks elapsed, however, before fresh discouragements 
threatened to terminate it permanently. Just at this point a 
second oracle, full of divine encouragement, came to Haggai. 
Weak hands were strengthened, timid hearts were cheered, 
religious faith and patriotic zeal were kindled into a glow of 
enthusiasm that never failed until the work was done. 

We note four considerations by which the prophet wrought 
this happy change in the temper of his people. 

I. JEHOVAH'S ABIDING PRESENCE. 

Regarded from a merely human point of view there were 
many and cogent reasons either for an abandonment of the 
work, or for its postponement until a more auspicious time. 
The hostility of the neighboring peoples showed itself in per- 
sistent plots to harass the returned exiles, in fomenting discords 
among them, and in discrediting them at the Persian court. 
In comparison with the number, wealth and influence of their 
adversaries, were not the Jews themselves weak and contempti- 
ble? Only a few years had passed since their return to a 
ruined city and a desolate land. In their poverty and distress 
would it not be audacious folly to undertake 4he rebuilding of 
a structure that had taxed the resources of the kingdom in its 
meridian glory and power? Would not those who in their 
childhood had seen the magnificence of the former house look 
with derision on the present comparatively puny result of their 
most heroic sacrifices ? Had not this generation borne burdens 
enough without being crushed under another? Why not relin- 
quish this enormous load to a better equipped posterity? 
Moreover, since they returned from Babylon, had not the Lord 
withheld the legitimate increase of the fields and vineyards? 
Had they not sown much, and brought in little ; drunk, and 
yet not been filled with drink ; clothed themselves, and yet not 
been warm ; earned wages, only to put it into a bag with holes ? 



I.essox III.] ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. 2 1 

In these straitened circumstances did not the care of their 
families demand all their time and substance ? It might be a 
pardonable, but was it not a rash enthusiasm in the prophet 
that had incited them to waste a month of labor on this hope- 
less task ? Religious leaders are always unreasonable ! They 
imagine that common people have nothing to do but to work 
and give for the advancement of visionary projects. These dis- 
couraged Jews could have invented a hundred excuses for 
abandoning the work. Self-justification is easy when one is 
eager to recede from an unwelcome task or duty. 

All human objections, however, are as chaff before an 
explicit divine command. The voice of prophecy, re-awakened 
after long silence, had spoken the authoritative word. The 
accomplishment could not be obstructed by the arrogance of 
outside foes, or by the conscious weakness of Jehovah's people. 
However sore the discipline to which their sins had subjected 
them, they were his people still, a " holy seed," a "very small 
remnant " indeed, but one over whose preservation he had 
watched with jealous care. In his wrath at their backslidings 
he had dispersed them among the nations, but in everlasting 
kindness he had gathered them together from the four corners 
of the earth. Had he not promised by the mouth of his 
prophet that " they should build the old wastes, that they should 
raise up the former desolations, and that they should repair the 
waste cities, the desolations of many years?" Not, however, 
in their own strength, nor by reliance on their own resources. 
With loving reiteration Jehovah exhorts them to forget their 
own weakness in joyful recognition of his omnipotence ; to 
assure themselves that " the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof 
in time of trouble, is not as a sojourner in the land, nor as a 
wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night." As he 
covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt, so " his 
spirit abideth among them," — that spirit which in the Old Testa- 
ment was not yet revealed as a distinct person in the Trinity, 



22 ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. [First Quarter. 

but was conceived as a divine energy immanent in the world at 
large, but manifesting itself in extraordinary measure among Jeho- 
vah's chosen people. " Be strong and work, saith the Lord of 
Hosts ; for I am with you, and fear ye not." There is no better 
ground for victorious confidence than that. His presence is 
infinitely more desirable than unlimited worldly wealth and 
power. 

We, likewise, face the depressing problems of our own day, 
grappling with them as we can, only to be overwhelmed by the 
consciousness of our inability. Through repeated failures we 
learn that without divine help we can do nothing. We are 
overmatched in the battle. Weary, wounded, ready to die, we 
turn at length to One who has already won the victory, and who 
most graciously invites us to repose confidence in him, for he 
assures us, "All power is given unto me in heaven and on 
earth ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." 

ii. jehovah's inexhaustible resources. 

What if Jehovah's people are poor, insignificant, despised ? 
He who is in the midst of them is the rightful owner of the 
world's treasures. The silver and the gold are his. Though 
for the moment they have been seized by others, he will pro- 
vide for their return to his own people. He will " shake all the 
nations, and the costliest things* of all the nations shall come" 
into his sanctuary. 

Now, see, when the people really trusted the Lord and went 

*"The desire of all nations," A. V., has no reference to Christ. 
A glance at the original shows this traditional and still popular idea 
to be a misinterpretation, (a) The context is altogether against it ; 
(b) the word " chemdah " means here a thing desired because of 
its costliness ; (c) the verb "shall come " is plural, and shows that 
"chemdah" is a collective and means "desirable things," as the 
R. V. rightly renders it. 



Lesson in.] ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. 23 

to work (Ezra vi. 3-9), how wonderfully the prophet's word 
was fulfilled ; how the expense of rearing the massive walls, and 
the cost of the wood-work were defrayed from the treasury of 
the Persian empire ; how the priceless vessels of silver and 
gold, that Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon for his own 
glory, as he thought, but really for safe keeping during the exile, 
were all restored again ; how the adversaries of the Jews, who 
had plotted against them, were compelled by the royal decree 
to furnish them day by day with young bullocks, rams and 
lambs for sacrifices, and with wheat, salt, wine and oil as the 
priests had need. Not only this, but from the very day (Hag. 
ii. 19, 20) when the rebuilding of the temple began, Jehovah 
would bless their land with affluence, instead of smiting it with 
blasting, with mildew, and with hail. 

God's work never stops for lack of means when men are 
willing to obey him, and to launch out confidently on his prom- 
ises. The silver and the gold are forthcoming, not by miracle, 
but through natural channels, as surprising sometimes as actual 
miracles. Is the time ripe for carrying the gospel into the 
heathen world? See how the millions are poured every year 
into the Lord's treasury. Does he inspire a Miiller or a 
Spurgeon to build orphanages? At once he sends the means, 
and continues sending as fast as needed. Would he see a 
great onward movement in Christian education? Million 
follows million without stint from the most unexpected sources. 
If men will not give spontaneously, as did Darius, to the further- 
ance of God's purposes, he compels them to bring the best of 
their substance, as the Samaritans were forced to do. 

God scatters his resources neither extravagantly nor in con- 
formity to the whims of men. The law of parsimony withholds 
him from giving so freely as to make unnecessary the disci- 
pline of anxiety and struggle. Even when social and moral 
reformations are greatly needed he does not purchase transient 
success by lavish expenditures. Moral results are not per- 



24 ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. [First Quarter. 

manently secured by material agencies. God could have sup- 
plied the early Church with means enough to have freed every 
slave in the Roman empire. Instead, he projects into human- 
ity two lofty ideals, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man, confident that these ideals will ultimately and forever 
accomplish what neither gold nor force can do. Nor does he 
waste his resources in perpetuating institutions that have sur- 
vived their usefulness. Local churches, as well as individual 
saints, are but temporary factors. He does not endow mori- 
bund remnants of churches, any more than he preserves in 
jeweled caskets the mouldering bones of saints. " Holy 
relics " he suffers with absolute indifference to moulder into 
common dust. 

in. jehovah's gracious purposes. 

Haggai prophesied in a transition period. The older men 
who heard him had witnessed the wreck of the Jewish mon- 
archy. The return of the captives to Jerusalem was the glim- 
mering dawn after a dark and stormy night. The glory of the 
past was a memory, that of the future a dream. Transition 
periods are always charged with doubts and fears, with peril 
and pain. No mother-life renews itself without the pangs of 
travail, but they are sustained by a great hope, and forgotten 
in the greater joy over the child that is born. The sorest 
trials are alleviated by an assurance that they lead to higher 
and richer experiences. And yet men would often forego 
these if they could thereby escape the trial. They cling to 
long cherished errors because they dread the effort and pain 
of adjusting themselves to new truths. Hoary abuses linger in 
the community, in the state, in the Church, because men 
shrink from the sharp but transient evils attending a crisis. 
Modern science, philosophy, criticism, — the forces that are 
continually precipitating these crises — are not enemies but 
friends, God's purposes do not move backward. A new and 



Lesson III.] ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. 25 

better world always emerges from the chaos of the old. So 
long as God's hand directs the development every transition 
will be, not toward darkness and anarchy, but toward truth and 
order. 

Haggai encouraged his people with the assurance that their 
sufferings were not meaningless. Painful as their national dis- 
cipline had been, it was but an unavoidable step in the evolu- 
tion of a sublime purpose. Not only did he assure them that 
Jehovah, their covenant-keeping God, was still in the midst of 
his people ; not only were his resources inexhaustible, and 
ready to be poured out in their behalf; but he had also a pur- 
pose of grace concerning them and the whole world, immeasur- 
ably exceeding the brightest memories of the past. Despicable 
as this new house might appear to those who had seen the 
splendors of Solomon's temple, the new would nevertheless out- 
shine the old. " Greater shall be the latter glory of this house 
than the former, saith the Lord of hosts." Observe that it is 
the " latter glory," R. V., and not the " latter house," A. V., 
for, whatever be its material condition, Jehovah knows of but 
one abiding dwelling on his holy hill of Zion. In a little while 
he would "shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and 
the dry land," overturning the long established order of things 
in the world, and introducing a new, divine order in which his 
house would be the centre of revelation and worship. Haggai's 
vision of the messianic time resembled Isaiah's vision of the 
ideal Jerusalem : " It shall come to pass in the latter days 
that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in 
the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; 
and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go 
and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the 
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us 
of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out of Zion 
shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jeru- 
salem," (Isa. ii, 2,3). In that magnificent future, whose gleam- 



26 ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. [First Quarter. 

ing light was seen from afar by Israel's prophets, the kingdom 
of God will include all the kingdoms of the earth. Jerusalem 
will be the seat of empire, and Jehovah's temple the point unto 
which the gentiles will look for a world-embracing manifesta- 
tion of his truth and grace. Into it they will bring evermore 
the choicest of their treasures, and the noblest of themselves. 

That messianic day, moreover, will be characterized by uni- 
versal peace. For " in this place will I give peace, saith the 
Lord of hosts." Peace, first of all, between man and God, that 
which every true heart yearns for supremely, but which is not 
found in the world. Upon the tossed and weary heart, into 
the troubled conscience this ineffable peace will come, and 
this implies salvation in its fullest, richest sense. Peace also 
between man and man. International rivalries, the ambition 
of conquerors, royal greed of power will no longer hurl nation 
against nation in bloody strife. Smoking ruins, trampled har- 
vests, vultures gorging on the slain will be seen no more. The 
groans of the wounded and the dying, the agonized cry of 
widows and orphans will be heard no more. For Jehovah 
" shall judge between the nations, and shall reprove many 
peoples : and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and 
their spears into pruninghooks : nation shall not lift up sword 
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more," (Isa. 
ii. 4). Peace, finally, between man and the wild beasts of the 
field, (Isa. xi. 6-9). The distrust between them will cease. 
As nature has shared in man's curse, so it will share in the 
benefits of man's redemption. 

The glorious messianic import of this passage is independent 
of any actual coming of Jesus into the temple. This mis- 
interpretation has been projected upon it by later readers. 
Haggai does not specify it as the "latter glory of this house." 
This may have been in the mind of the Spirit who prompted 
the utterance, but it cannot be pressed in a strictly historical 
interpretation, 



Lesson III.] ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE. 2 7 

iv. jehovah's "little while." 

Some of the despondent ones might have retorted, "Such 
glowing pictures were painted by the older prophets, but they 
are as far from realization as ever." "No," says Haggai, "it 
is only one period more, a very brief one, and then Jehovah 
will work signs and wonders among the nations to arouse them 
from indifference, to turn them unto himself, and thus prepare 
for the golden age." In a measure his utterance was fulfilled 
at once, but in its larger signification it still awaits complete 
fulfilment. The centuries after the exile were really a brief 
preface to the messianic period which began with the coming 
of Christ into his temple, and which still continues. 

Men are impatient at the moderate pace of events in the 
kingdom of God. They wonder why he does not force men 
into swift obedience by stupendous displays of power. Because 
love and obedience are not wrought by force. Love conquers 
the kingdom of hatred only inch by inch. Viewing these 
things by and by from the side of eternity men will see that 
earth's longest periods are only Jehovah's "little whiles." 
The world is ripening faster than we think. Events are mov- 
ing with accelerated velocity. Who knows but that the full 
glory of the messianic time may be close at hand? Whether 
near or far, every man's supreme duty to God and to his fel- 
low-man is so to live, by the Holy Spirit's help, as to make the 
world better, and thus to hasten the advent of that golden age 
which lies not in the past, as men have sadly thought, a re- 
minder of eternal lapse and loss ; but in the future, which is 
still ours, a divine goal and beatific hope toward which the 
weary world is slowly toiling upward in the night. 



lessen? 11/. Jaijuary 22. 



JOSHUA THE HIGH-PRIEST. 

Zechariah Hi: i-io. 

By Professor GEORGE RICE HOVEY, Richmond, Va. 

THIS chapter contains a direct prophecy of the Messiah. 
What a wonderful hope of a future deliverer that was 
which God inspired in his ancient people ! Age after 
age it is cherished. It is the theme of loftiest song, the motive 
to noblest endurance and endeavor. And yet it occupies very 
little space in the writings of the prophets. How rarely did 
Moses, Samuel or Elijah refer to it ! And when later prophets 
told more frequently of the coming king, it was never done to 
gratify an idle curiosity about the future, but always to awaken 
hope in present darkness, or to raise a true ideal for present 
admiration and imitation. The future was revealed for the sake 
of the present. Prediction was only incidental. A prophet 
was not one who "foretold," so much as one who " told for." 
He spoke for God. He was not a diviner, but a preacher. 
He brought God's rnessages concerning sin and righteousness, 
judgment an4 mercy, to people who needed instruction and 
encouragement in their daily life. We can therefore under- 
stand his message only by understanding his times. 

But whether the prophet's words were history, exhortation or 
prediction, he dealt not with isolated facts, but with facts which 
were the expression of universal truths about God and man ; 
truths, whose application is more extensive than he knew, and 



tEssox iv.] Joshua the high-priEsT; 29 

whose meaning is deeper than he imagined. If then we would 
learn as nearly as possible the full thought of God for us, we 
must look at the germinal thought of the prophet as involving 
the deeper meaning with which Christ filled it full; These two 
principles must be borne in mind in the study of Zechariah. 

In the midst of Haggai's short prophetic career, Zechariah 
began to prophesy ; and apparently but two months after the 
last recorded utterance of the older prophet, the younger saw 
the vision of our lesson. 

The walls of the temple were hardly yet begun. The people 
were still absorbed in their worldly occupations. They were a 
feeble remnant closely watched by neighboring peoples, who 
were ready to thwart them by force or intrigue. Beyond, but 
ever within sight, the mighty empires of the Nile and the 
Euphrates were now and again spreading dismay among the 
weaker states. The shadow of their recent captivity was still 
upon the returned exiles, and the future was dark with equally 
calamitous possibilities. 

Zechariah, like Haggai, was sent to encourage the people of 
God. The vision of the four horsemen reveals God's constant 
watchfulness. The dangers which threaten shall never overtake 
his holy city. " My house shall be built in it ; . . . my 
cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad, and Jeho- 
vah shall yet comfort Zion and shall yet choose Jerusalem." 
The next vision foreshows that the conquerors of Israel under 
the symbolism of horns are doomed to utter overthrow by 
mighty smiths. And then the prophet sees the city stretching 
out on all sides without walls, " by reason of the multitude of 
men and cattle therein," and because Jehovah says, " I will be 
unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in 
the midst of her." 

After these glowing promises what more can be needed to 
give Israel hope and joy? One-half is lacking yet. Israel is 
unprepared. The best gift of heaven or earth brings no enjoy- 






$0 JOSHUA THE HIGH-RRIEST. [First Quarter. 

merit except to one who is able to receive and appreciate it. 
" Cast not your pearls before swine." A grand symphony only 
wearies him who has no ear for music. Heaven would be 
intolerable to one who is at enmity with God and hates righteous- 
ness. 

Sin in act or in heart takes all the meaning and joy out of 
God's richest promises and gifts. So it prevented the Israelites 
from appropriating the former gracious words until its baleful 
influence was removed by the fourth vision of our lesson. It 
is a vision of free forgiveness for the nation. Joshua, the high 
priest, represents Jerusalem and the people. His filthy garments 
are symbols of their sins, and his clean raiment is a pledge of 
their pardon. The vision includes glimpses of the Adversary, 
of Pardon, and of Subsequent Life. 

I. THE ADVERSARY. 

Who was the great opponent of those afflicted Hebrews? 
Was it the nations around ? Or was God himself against them ? 
The vision reveals their true enemy. It was neither of these, 
but the great adversary of souls ; he who tempted Christ ; the 
prince of darkness. 

The foe of man is Satan, not man ; much less God, who so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to save it. 

The very names of this enemy betray his character. The 
Hebrew word Satan means "adversary." And here, exemplify- 
ing his name, he is standing at Joshua's right hand "to be his 
adversary." When did he ever do a deed or suggest a thought 
really to help or bless a man ? The Greek name devil, " slan- 
derer," " calumniator," is equally characteristic. Perhaps in this 
very vision it was by accusing Joshua before the angel that he 
purposed to resist him. Adversary ! slanderer ! how often these 
English equivalents of Satan and Devil fitly describe a moralist 
or a professed Christian, and what a relationship in character is 
suggested by these synonymes ! 



Lesson IV.] joStfuA TliE itlGH-PfelESt. $1 

The assaults of Satan are well timed. It was when Joshua 
stood in foul raiment, symbol of the moral uncleanness of the 
people, and when the bright hopes of the returning exiles were 
fading away, that Satan seized the opportunity to accomplish 
their ruin. The days of sin, failure, despair, find him at hand 
to do his fatal work. In such days God alone can help. 

There is solid ground for the belief that he will not fail us. 
David argued from God's love and goodness to him that he 
would not suffer him to see corruption. Jesus reasoned that 
because God had cared enough for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 
to call himself pre-eminently their God, he would not let them 
perish. And in rebuking Satan, God uses the same argument. 
Those whom he hath chosen and has plucked from the fire ot 
captivity, he will not now forsake. 

God's past dealings with us are a pledge of the future, an 
assurance of final victory. In spite of our selfishness and for- 
getfulness of him, he has filled our past with abounding mer- 
cies. We may say, with Paul : " He that spared not his own 
son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with 
him freely give us all things?" " I thank God . . . being 
confident of this very thing, that he which began a good work 
in you will perfect it." 

II. PARDON. 

The long exile, the unfulfilled hopes of the return, the temple 
and city insignificant compared with those of earlier times, the 
small number of those willing to leave Babylon, the insolence 
and hostility of once despised neighbors — these things, the 
result of disobedience to God, ever reminded the people of 
their national sin. And yet the chief transgressors were no 
longer present to be punished. They had died long since ; or 
were far away in contented exile. 

Joshua and those who had returned were the chosen rem- 



3 2 Joshua the high^miest. [first Ouamer. 

nant — men who had given up fertile fields, lucrative employ- 
ments, and exalted station for the love they bore to their 
God and his chosen city. They may not have realized that 
they themselves were sinners. But in the vision Joshua finds 
himself in the very presence of Jehovah clothed in filthy gar- 
ments. In the sight of God he himself and those about him 
were defiled. What all their sins were we do riot know. But 
they had neglected God's house, while they beautified their 
own dwellings ; they had served mammon rather than God* 
Surely with them as with all, the supreme law of love to God 
and to man had been overidden every hour by thoughts of 
self interest. " None doeth good — no, not one." The defiled 
raiment revealed their sins. It is a long step forward when the 
self-satisfied man learns as Joshua did the truth of Isaiah's 
words : " All our righteousness is as filthy rags." 

How vivid and repugnant sin must have become under such 
a symbol. The garments were not coarse, or old, or worn 
and soiled with use, but filthy. By such striking symbolism 
God taught his chosen people to hate sin. This was no euphe- 
mistic language softening and covering the wrong doing, but 
rather a proclamation of it. Sin masked under the forms of 
fashion or elegance is doubly dangerous. It entices the weak ; 
it warps the judgment even of the good. Far better is it by 
our language and treatment to associate wrong doing with 
those things which men detest, until they learn to abhor sin 
also wherever found and however clothed. 

With garments so filthy but one thing can be done. They 
cannot be covered up. The blackest spots cannot be sponged 
off — as men try to do with their guilt, — for every thread of the 
clothing is defiled. Moreover the wretched man seems pow- 
erless to remove the unclean garments. In fact, they are part 
of him, they are his life, his character, himself, God must 
work the deed which shall free him from the burden of his 
sins. " Take away the filthy garments and clothe him in fair 



Wesson IV.] JOSHUA THE HIGH-PRIEST. 33 

raiment," "I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." 
The burden has rolled from Pilgrim's shoulders* 

III. SUBSEQUENT LIFE. 

This was not the end of Pilgrim's journey ; it was hardly 
more than the beginning. Pardon was never intended to be 
the end of effort or of progress. It is the breaking light after 
darkness, which only reveals new duties and gives greater 
ability to perform them. It is the divine cleansing of a daubed 
and disfigured canvas in order to call out the artist's best 
effort which shall result in a portrait of nobler beauty. Par- 
don is the man's entrance into paths of duty, and hope, and 
joyful fruition, which stretch out far beyond his vision when a 
just forgiven penitent. 

Accordingly, the angel of Jehovah does not pardon Joshua 
and dismiss him ; but rather pardons and then hastens to 
declare solemnly : " thus saith Jehovah of hosts : If thou wilt 
walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge," then thou 
shalt have the honor of priesthood with its authority and its 
free access into God's presence*. 

After pardon comes obedience. The order cannot be 
reversed. Joshua's previous efforts to obey were vain. The 
inevitable alienation of a sinner from God, whom he has 
wronged, prevents whole-hearted service. Only with the con- 
sciousness of forgiveness can there be full and unconstrained 
obedience. 

But after one is pardoned, walking in God's ways is the con- 
dition of further blessing. Not that God who has forgiven 
once is unwilling to forgive again. He is love, and his mercies 
are everlasting. But a man cannot wilfully and constantly 
transgress God's law, and continually and lightly seek forgive- 
ness. An earthly father may be glad to forgive a wayward son 
a thousand times, but how many times will that son have heart 

3 



34 JOSHUA THE HIGH-PRIEST. [First Quarter. 

to seek forgiveness ? So sin at last prevents prayer for renewed 
pardon. And furthermore, all the higher gifts of God, joy and 
peace, deep knowledge of his truth, nobility of character, by 
the very laws of human nature and of the kingdom of God are 
the result of obedience. Pardon is the prerequisite, obedi- 
ence the necessary consequence. 

Upon the high priest there was an especial obligation to 
careful obedience. He was in a sense God's representative. 
His office carried with it wide influence for good or evil. Before 
God, indeed, all are under the same supreme law of right. But 
towards their fellowmen, some are under heavier obligations 
than others. The obligation rests most heavily on the repre- 
sentative of God, the teacher or preacher whose influence is 
wider than that of one in a humbler sphere, and whose oppor- 
tunity to help and guide is greater. Our opportunity to serve 
man is the measure of our responsibility to man. Hence to 
every leader in the Church the instruction to Joshua comes with 
especial force ; he must walk in God's ways and keep his 
charges; his personal life and official conduct must meet God's 
requirements. 

A larger promise limited to no man or family is now intro- 
duced by the emphatic words, "Hear now, ... for behold." 
It is an old promise renewed. From earliest ages the hopes 
of all godly Jews had centered about one dim future figure ever 
expected, ever receding. Moses spoke of him as a prophet, 
the highest ideal in his mind. David sang of him as a righteous 
king, the loftiest conception of man in that age. But when the 
family of David became almost extinct, and its remaining 
members were insignificant among the great ones of the earth, 
when the people of God and even his prophets were afflicted 
and exiled, then the nobility of patient, lowly suffering and 
service, was learned, and the faithful, afflicted servant of God 
was taken as the truest type of greatness, the character most 
like the divine. The coming one was pictured as the servant 



WESSON IV.] JOSHUA THE HIGH-PfclEST. $$ 

of Jehovah, and as a sprout growing up out of dry ground from 
the stump of the fallen house of David. But still he was the 
hope of Israel. The lowly names by which he was known 
became transformed into titles of honor and glory. No more 
inspiring message could be proclaimed than the renewed 
assurance that this hope was about to be fulfilled. So Zechariah 
arouses Israel to courage and effort by the word from God 
" Behold I will bring forth my Servant, the Branch." 

That promise has been fulfilled to us. And when we, like 
Zechariah, would urge as a motive for action God's greatest 
gift, we must speak of that same Servant, of his life, and death 
and resurrection. Wonderful power in human life ! His name 
brought fresh zeal and courage into the feeble remnant under 
Joshua and Zerubbabel twenty-five hundred years ago. It has 
never lost its power. His past life on earth, his unseen presence 
with us, his future appearance, inspire the Christian to nobler 
life and service than any other motive. 

This great promise of the Branch, pledge of the continued 
care and favor of Jehovah, is naturally accompanied by more 
definite promises of immediate help. The seven eyes of Jeho- 
vah, which run to and fro through the whole earth and are the 
symbol of perfect watchfulness, shall be directed to each stone 
of the temple now building under great difficulties. More than 
that, he will "engrave the graving thereof," he will give the 
stone its beauty. He will both watch and work with his people. 

Man's work is ever incomplete. He may turn up the sod, 
and level the ground, making it less unsightly than before ; he 
may plant the seed, but God alone can give the increase. In 
spiritual matters, no less than in temporal, our work needs and 
certainly receives its vitalizing and beautifying power from him 
who transforms the elements into flower and fruit. 

Peace and prosperity complete the picture of the future of 
the forgiven people. Every one shall call his neighbor to come 
and sit under his fig tree. Righteousness and peace with God 



$6 JOSHUA THE HIGH-PRIEST. [Firs? Quarter. 

were doubtless included in this favorite Hebrew thought, but 
temporal peace, with all its glorious blessings, was the chief 
element in the anticipated reign of the Messiah. 

Some of the loftiest conceptions of the Jewish religion are 
found in these verses. Each is a shadow of a vastly greater 
and more inspiring truth, which is familiar to the Christian. 
The priest as mediator between the people and their God, as 
one who represents the nation, bearing its sins and receiving 
its blessings, faintly pictured our mediating high priest. But 
how great the contrast between the two ! The access of the 
Jewish high priest to God in the holy of holies once a year 
shadowed forth, but how dimly, the Christian's free approach 
to the throne of grace ! The vague hope of some temporal 
deliverer, a prophet, king, servant, fell how far short of the 
Saviour of the world ! The peace beneath the fig tree was how 
different from the peace of God which passeth understanding ! 
Those old ideas and hopes had marvellous power over men ; 
how much greater should be the power over our lives of their 
grander fulfilments ! 



lessoQ V. January 29. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. 

Zechariah iv: i-io. 

By Rev. E. M. POTEAT, New Haven, Conn. 

IT was the mission of Zechariah to stimulate the courage of 
God's people, to kindle again the enthusiasm for the tem- 
ple and the theocracy with which they had set out from 
Babylon. Opposition from their foes, the enormity of the task 
of restoring the temple, and the necessity of providing homes 
for themselves, had broken their courage, and diverted them 
from contemplation of their great spiritual destiny. They 
must be brought again to the deep theocratic feeling cherished 
among their fathers of old. 

The Lord's message to Israel through Zechariah was com- 
municated to the prophet in a series of eight visions. It would 
be interesting to trace the progress of thought through all 
these, but this would lead us too far from the present purpose. 
We must content ourselves with setting forth the meaning of 
the fifth of these visions. 

The prophet sees a seven-pronged candlestick, all of gold. 
The seven prongs bear seven lamps. These are supplied with 
oil by means of pipes, from a bowl or reservoir resting upon 
the top of the stem of the candlestick. An even flow of oil to 
the seven lamps is secured by a series of pipes connecting each 
lamp with every other. On either side of the lamp-stand is a 
luxuriant olive tree, " one upon the right side of the bowl, and 



38 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. [First Quarter. 

the other upon the left side thereof." These two trees pour a 
steady supply of constant, self-produced oil through golden 
spouts into the reservoir at the top of the candlestick. Such 
was the vision* — a great candelabrum perpetually agleam with 
golden light, perpetually replenished with living oil from living 
olive trees. It is to be noted that there was no need of min- 
istering priests to keep the lamps ablaze. 

When the prophet asked the angel : " What are these, my 
Lord?" The angel replied : "This is the word of the Lord 
unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by 
my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." It is difficult to carry 
through all the details of the vision any one interpretation of it. 
The clearest application of details is given us in verse fourteen, 
according to which the two olive trees are the two sons of oil, 
i. e., anointed ones, viz., Zerubbabel and Joshua, or more 
broadly, the prince and the priest. Being interpreted, this 
means that the restored Israel will carry forward the work of 
revealing God — will shine on the darkness of the world — by 
virtue of the vital relation of God in his spirit to the heads of 
the community, viz., the Prince and the Priest. " And the most 
sacred mystery to which these visions point is the consumma- 
tion of this relation."! This will be effected in the man whose 
name is The Branch, who will unite in himself both the royal 
and the priestly dignities, and upon whom the Spirit of God 
will be bestowed without measure. 

It will be seen that the vision of Zechariah was a reinforce- 
ment of Jehovah's pledge to his people in Egypt. " Yet now be 
strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord ; and be strong, O Joshua, 
son of Jehozadak, the high priest ; and be strong all ye people 
of the land, saith the Lord of Hosts, and work : for I am with 

*The enterprising teacher will make a drawing for his class of 
what the prophet saw. 

fOrelli, O. T. Prophecy, 439, 



Lesson V.] THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. 39 

you, saith the Lord of Hosts, according to the word that I 
covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, and my 
spirit abideth among you : fear ye not." Long previously had 
Hosea pleaded with the people not to rely on armies, but upon 
God. "I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will 
save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by 
bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen." 
After that word was spoken, the people were dragged away 
to grace an eastern monarch's triumph. Jeremiah when only 
a handful of miserable paupers had been left with him in 
Jerusalem had yet persisted in believing that the Lord was on 
his side. The Syrians, the Assyrians, Egyptians, Scythians, 
Chaldeans, Persians, had all made their conquests by their 
armies. Yet a messenger comes to the governor just beginning 
to re-establish the theocracy, saying, "Thou shalt not gather 
an army for defence. Not by might, nor by power, but by my 
spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." God will be a wall of fire 
about the city, and a glory in the midst of her. 

This noble appeal to a heroic trust in God is preserved to us 
in a Psalm of the period, viz., the 11 8th : 

The Lord is on my side ; I will not fear : What can man do 
unto me? 

The Lord is on my side among them that help me. 



It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. 

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
princes. 

All nations compassed me about : in the name of the Lord 
I will cut them off. 

They compassed me about like bees : they are quenched as 
the fire of thorns : in the name of the Lord I will cut them off. 

Thou didst thrust sore at me that I might fall : but the Lord 
helped me. 



40 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. [First Quarter. 

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he is become 
my salvation. 

It was a hard lesson for these returned exiles, this lesson of 
implicit trust in God. The nation was just awaking out of a 
long night, in which God seemed to have abandoned them. 
They were little practiced in seeing the invisible. Like Elisha's 
servant, they needed to have their eyes opened to perceive the 
mountains of Jerusalem " full of horses and chariots of fire " 
round about the Lord's chosen. But the men of insight among 
them saw in Zechariah's assurance of the presence of God's 
spirit in the leaders of the nation, the pledge that the new city 
was to triumph over all the obstacles created by the hatred and 
scorn of neighboring peoples, — the pledge of a completed 
temple and kingdom of God. 

The tendency of our times is away from all special reliance 
on the spirit of God. Relatively, we have too great faith in 
secondary causes. To build a temple, you need only a com- 
petent architect, a good contractor and a good force of 
masons. If opposition is threatened, simply provide yourself 
with a sufficient police force. Such is men's creed now. We 
glorify organization. We deify law. We apotheosize the 
practical. We are witnessing a revival of the heretical belief in 
salvation by works. If it was necessary for James to say, 
" Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone," it is nec- 
essary for us to say, Work if it hath not faith is dead, being 
alone. We give up our inspiration for institutions. We lose 
the Spirit of God in elaborately designed methods for his 
operation. The intellectual, the practical, the spiritual ; this 
is the order of importance according to the judgment of many 
contemporaries. Given intellect and the genius for work, peo- 
ple in effect say, and a church will succeed, Spirit or no Spirit. 
Here is matter for grave concern to the Church of Christ. 
In proportion as we trust in method, eloquence, and work, we 
are tempted to distrust simplicity, spirituality, and prayer. 



Lesson V.] THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. 4 1 

Few things, therefore, could be of more importance to the 
religious life of to-day than this message of Zechariah to the 
returned exiles. However truly and clearly seers and prophets 
may still apprehend God, the life of thousands goes on now-a- 
days in practical atheism. A competent observer, speaking of 
New York City, recently said : " I can at any moment take a 
city pastor into sets at two social extremes, where the Christian 
Deity is not only dead but has been buried with cynicism and 
contempt." A distinguished philosopher who has been seek- 
ing to purge the conception of God from vulgar anthropo- 
morphisms has good reason to think that the result has been 
to "defecate the conception to a pure transparency." So 
by no thought and by misguided thought, the belief in a living 
God and Helper has lost its influence upon many minds. 

And the infection has spread to the churches. Witness the 
almost frantic efforts of some among them to keep themselves 
alive. Having insensibly withdrawn from the sources of vital 
piety their only recourse is the process of artificial respiration. 
We need schooling in the science of Spiritual Dynamics and 
Economics. 

That this thought may assume greater definiteness, let me 
specify some of the lessons which the vision of Zechariah has 
for us. I mention, out of many, three : 

1. The proper relation of God 1 s Spirit to the Church is a 
vital one. Philosophically considered, the main conceptions 
of God which have been current in the religious progress of the 
race are two : God as transcendent above the world, and God 
as immanent in the world. The one erects a throne for the 
Ruler of the Universe somewhere above the sky, and worships 
him from afar. It reached its extreme form among the Deists 
of the last century, who denied all interference on the part of 
God in the affairs of the world. It was the dominant, though 
not the only conception of God among the Jews before the 
coming of Christ, which helps to account for the formality and 



42 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. [First Quarter. 

barrenness of their religion. Nothing so robs religion of its 
transforming and sustaining power as the drawing of its sanc- 
tions from some distant sphere, and the deferring of its rewards 
to some future age. 

The other conception — that God is immanent in the world — 
finds its best exposition in the literature of Pantheism, and 
has had expression and adherents ever since the time of the 
Vedic hymns. It reaches its extreme form in the view, still 
current, which denies to God personality and identifies him 
with the forces which upbear and impel the world. 

Both these conceptions are found — though not in their 
extreme forms — in the Bible. The New Testament doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit may be regarded as the evangelical counter- 
part of the philosophical doctrine of immanence. The New 
Testament teaching here is summarized for us in the fulfilment 
in Acts ii. 17, of the prophecy of Joel. Joel had predicted a 
universal outflow of the Spirit which should reach all flesh ; a 
dispensation of power to be marked by wonders in the heavens 
above and in the earth beneath. The prophet foretold a time 
when young men and maidens should see the visions he had 
seen, when the whole of life should be invested with the divine 
Spirit ; when, therefore, no one place, as the temple, should 
be sacred, and no one order of men, as priests, be honored 
above another, because all were to be filled with all the fulness 
of God. God would no longer be confined above the sky, or 
by the walls of a single building, or by the lines which sep- 
arate the nations. He would come out into the open, so to 
speak, and be seen everywhere. He would make every place 
sacred by his presence. The universe, and no longer a booth 
of skins or a house of cedar, would be his dwelling place. 
This dispensation of the Spirit began on the day of Pentecost. 
In it the Gospel assumes its universal character and function. 
But the New Testament does not say that the Holy Spirit 
abides in the world and world forces in such a sense as to 



Lesson V.] THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. 43 

become one with them. In the ministry of the Holy Spirit 
God is still a person different from us and from his world, but 
he is no longer remote. With Paul we are thrilled with the 
awe of a great, tender reverence when we reflect that " He is 
not far away from any one of us ; for in Him we live and move 
and have our being." We sympathize with Julius Miiller when 
he says : " The wide distance between God and the world 
exists only in the imagination of a piety utterly emasculated, 
and of a theology merely intellectual and barren." I know of 
no more blighting heresy than the practical denial among us of 
this New Testament and Old Testament teaching concerning 
the presence of God's Spirit in his world, in his Church, as a 
vital, blessed and mighty equipment for life's battles and 
duties. Could I do but one thing for Christians to-day, I 
would give them the sense and the vision of a very present God ; 
so that while Mr. Spencer is defecating the conception of God 
to " a pure transparency," men might know their Father in 
heaven, on earth, and in the 'hearts of his children — the life 
of their life, putting the infiniteness of his being to their finite- 
ness, to their folly his wisdom, to their restlessness, his rest. 

2. God's Spirit is the Church's only proper equipment for 
service. The presence of God's Spirit for defence and for 
aggression was the burden of Zechariah's message to Zerubbabel. 
God is our defence. It is said that William Penn was the only 
colonist in America who left his settlement wholly unprotected 
by fence or arms, and that his was the only one which was un- 
assailed by the Indian tribes. The first Christians depended in 
a peculiar manner upon the Holy Spirit for protection and 
leadership, and with the result that they were delivered from 
the hands of persecutors. They had courage to meet obstacles 
and power to overcome them ; they had new light on old 
truth, especially new light in the interpretation of the prophets ; 
they had new truth as they were able to receive it, or as their 
exigency required it. In three centuries, spite of their own 



44 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. [First Quarter. 

poverty and the prestige and power of those who opposed them, 
they overspread the Roman Empire, and the religion of the 
humble Nazarene became the religion of the emperor. Thence- 
forward, the Church leaned less on the Spirit and more on the 
ally she had found in the State. Before the end of the fourth 
century missionary work, as a means of suppressing Paganism, 
had given place to imperial edicts. After Augustine, who died 
A. D. 430, the history of the Church is barren of great 
preachers and aggressive evangelic effort, till the great crusad- 
ing movement in the eleventh century. Precisely in this period 
the monstrous mechanism of the Church of Rome shaped 
itself as the fitting embodiment of a piety which had become 
formal, and of a worship which had been lost in ritual. His- 
tory affords no more striking enforcement of Zechariah's mes- 
sage : " Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
the Lord of Hosts." 

3. God's Spirit, appropriated by prayer, is now intended to 
operate through all believers. 

In the time of Zechariah, God's Spirit wrought his will by 
means of special representatives. The olive trees supplied the 
oil to the candelabrum. Only the anointed ones were in full 
measure supplied with the Spirit. But when Joel's prophecy 
was fulfilled, the Lord poured out his Spirit upon all flesh. It 
was a new epoch in the spiritual progress of mankind. God 
wills now to operate directly, without mediation, upon the 
hearts and minds of all believers. He speaks no longer to the 
company exclusively through leaders especially endowed and 
appointed to receive and transmit his revelations, but to each 
one separately, and to all at the same time. " It sat upon each 
one of them ; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." 
In this blessed dispensation the priest has lost his function, 
since all are welcome to come into immediate, vital relation to 
God. 

What matters it, however, if while we are within reach of 



tESSo* V.j THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. 45 

strength, we elect to continue in all our old weakness ? The 
nearness of God does not insure that we shall, in spite of our- 
selves, personally feel the thrill and joy of his strength. Prayer 
is a condition to this. Through prayer, the very air about us 
may be charged with God, so as to bear us up like eagles in elec- 
tric clouds. Closer than our breath is God with his Almighty 
Spirit and grace. Before Franklin's experiment for harnessing 
the lightning, the air was as full of electricity as it is to-day, but 
men did not know how to appropriate it. A battery may be 
charged with electric fire, but you must make your connections 
to get the power. We need to gear our personal lives and our 
Church work on to the Power which moves the world. Then 
shall we see a revolution in spiritual commerce and economics, 
which will speedily bring in the completed kingdom that was the 
hope of Zechariah and the inspiration of his message to Zerub- 
babel. We make this connection by prayer. Pray in faith, and 
there shall quiver along every fibre of your being a thrill of 
the life, light and might of God. 



lessor l/l. February 5- 



DEDICATING THE TEMPEE. 

Ezra vi: 14-22. 

By Rev. A. S. COATS, Pawtucket, R. I. 

THE facade of the great Church of the Escorial in Madrid 
is adorned with six colossal statues of the kings of 
Judah. They were placed there by order of the dark- 
souled Philip II. in token of the fact that his Church found its 
architectural inspiration in Solomon's temple. They represent 
the kings of Judah who bore the chief part in that temple : — 
David, the proposer; Solomon, the founder; Jehoshaphat, 
Hezekiah, Josiah, Manasseh, the successive purifiers and 
restorers. 

The first five lessons of this quarter have had to do with 
the erection of the second great temple of the Jewish Church. 
Our lesson to-day is an account of its dedication. If some 
future king in Europe, or uncrowned son of the virgin soil of 
America, grown richer than any European sovereign, shall ven- 
ture to build a Church, Philip-like, to commemorate his victo- 
ries, a Church that finds its architectural inspiration in the 
second temple of Jerusalem, whose shall be the statues to 
adorn its facade? Shall they not be those of Cyrus and 
Darius, who proposed it and furnished funds from the royal 
treasuries for its erection ; Zerubbabel and Joshua, who built it ; 
and Haggai and Zechariah, who gave the people no peace of 
conscience till they finished it ? If, indeed, this future Euro- 



LESSON VI.] DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. 47 

pean potentate or American millionaire shall order nine 
instead of six colossal statues for his Church, whose shall be 
the remaining three but those of Isaiah, who foresaw through 
the mists of one hundred and fifty years its coming glories, and 
by the vision splendid kept the hope of it burning in the hearts 
of the captives in Babylon ; Jeremiah, who foretold, almost to 
the year, yet two generations away, its completion, and thus 
encouraged the people in making his dream a reality ; and the 
rapt Ezekiel, whose vision of the ideal temple, " fourteen years 
after the city was smitten," played no small part in the erection 
of the real temple some fifty years after the vision was granted ? 

God fulfils himself in many ways. He never hastens. He 
never tarries. He works through a multitude of agencies, 
many of which, to all human seeming, are directly opposed to 
his purposes. When Zerubbabel brought forth the headstone 
of this temple with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it," he was 
but consummating a work for which all history had been a 
preparation, and all time a condition. We pause, however, to 
glance a moment at the men and forces more immediately con- 
cerned in making possible this joyous occasion. 

In Isaiah xliv. 28, God saith of Cyrus : " He is my Shepherd 
and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, 
she shall be built, and of the temple, thy foundation shall be 
laid." Prophecy in general differs from history as the ideal 
differs from the real, yet at times the minute accuracy of its ful- 
filment surprises us. Cyrus doubtless pictured himself as more 
than laying the foundation of the temple when in the first year 
of his reign he issued his decree to the captive Jews to return 
to Jerusalem, ' ' and build the house of the Lord the God of 
Israel, (he is God) which is in Jerusalem ;" but only the 
foundation was laid during his reign. Then, as now, every great 
and good cause found a few active friends, a few active foes, 
and a multitude of indifferent but idle well-wishers. 

The active foes to the building of the temple were the semi- 



48 DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. [First Quarter. 

heathen semi-Hebrew Samaritans, whose hired counsellors in 
the Persian court for many years greatly hindered the progress 
of the work. The indifferent friends were the rank and file of 
the returned captives themselves, who^ sent by Cyrus expressly 
to build the house which God had charged them to build him 
in Jerusalem, soon grew weary in well-doing and contented 
themselves in the erection of fine dwellings to shelter their own 
heads. Precisely here comes in the work of the prophets 
Haggai and Zechariah. " Is it," exclaims Haggai, " a time for 
you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house 
lieth waste? . * . Go up to the mountains and bring 
wood, and build the house, and I will take pleasure therein, 
and I will be glorified, saith the Lord." Zechariah, in refer- 
ring to the mountain of difficulty that active foes and luke- 
warm friends were interposing to the completion of the temple, 
exclaims: "Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerub- 
babel thou shalt become a plain !" 

Thus reproved and encouraged, the people, led by Joshua 
the priest and Zerubbabel the prince, begin anew the work 
largely abandoned soon after the laying of its foundations. A 
new obstacle is now interposed by those jealous tribute-col- 
lectors " beyond the river," Tattenai and Shethar-bozenai, who 
in hot haste dispatch messengers to Darius suggesting that at 
least a search be made in the royal archives to ascertain if 
indeed, as the builders declare, the great Cyrus had made " a 
decree to build this house of God at Jerusalem." Zeal in 
blocking the cause of progress often results in adding a new 
impulse to the same. So here. The search was made. The 
decree of Cyrus was found. A new decree was issued by 
Darius : " Now therefore . . . be ye far from thence ; let 
the work of this house of God alone." 

From this time forth we hear of no active opposition on the 
part of foes ; no selfish indifference on the part of friends. 
The work on the temple, which we are not to believe had ever 



Wesson VI.] DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. 49 

entirely ceased since its foundation was laid some twelve or 
fifteen years before, no longer languished 

" through dim lulls of unapparent growth," 

but 

"mid good acclaim, 
climbed with the eye to cheer the architect. ' ' 

At last, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius, B. C. 519, 
four years after they began with new enthusiasm upon the mag- 
nificent structure, larger, if the plans of Cyrus were carried out, 
than was the temple of Solomon, the prediction of Zechariah 
was fulfilled : they brought forth the head-stone with shoutings 
of " Grace, grace unto it." Since the decree of Cyrus, looking 
to its construction, was issued B. C. 536, the erection of the 
temple had consumed seventeen years of time. Some scholars 
make the interval two and twenty years. 

Of the temple's cost we know but little. Ezra mentions the 
fact that at its inception the people themselves " gave of their 
ability into the treasury of the work three score and one 
thousand darics of gold and five thousand pounds of silver." 
This would equal nearly six hundred thousand dollars of our 
money. We must not, however, forget that both Cyrus and 
Darius decreed that "for the building of this house of God, of 
the king's goods, even the tribute beyond the river, expenses 
be given with all diligence unto these men, that they be not 
hindered." Doubtless its cost in money would have to be reck- 
oned in millions rather than in hundreds of thousands of 
dollars. Who shall estimate its cost in labor, anxiety and tears ? 

The time chosen for the dedication of Solomon's temple, five 
hundred years before, was the feast of Tabernacles. With a 
fine insight into the meaning of history, that ever repeats itself, 
the Passover festival was chosen as the fitting time for the 
dedication of the temple that now took the old one's place and 
carried on its mission. Had not God in great mercy again 
passed over his people in bondage, as a thousand years before 



50 DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. [First Quarter. 

in the land of Egypt? It was "the children of the captivity" 
who kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. 

The "two hundred bullocks, two hundred rams and four 
hundred lambs " that were now offered in sacrifice, seem but a 
small number as compared with the " twenty and two thousand 
oxen and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep," offered by 
Solomon at the dedication of his temple ; but he had to provide 
a feast for a nation, while Zerubbabel had to feed but a handful 
of the tribes of Judah, Levi and Benjamin. 

But their brethren yet remaining in captivity were not for- 
gotten in the midst of this general rejoicing ; nor were even the 
lost tribes of the children of Israel — lost even then to history 
for two hundred years. Did they not offer " for a sin-offering 
twelve he-goats, according to the twelve tribes of Israel?" 
Thus they testified in sublime faith that though lost to history, 
their brethren of the northern kingdom were not lost to God. 
Thus they expressed their conviction, abundantly justified in the 
vision on Patmos, that the children of God are ever to be 
numbered in twelve tribes. Indeed, the thought and care of 
these exultant worshipers for others did not stop here. They 
were missionaries to Judah as well as captives returned to their 
own land ; and so we read : " All such as had separated them- 
selves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, 
to seek the Lord, the God of Israel, did eat the feast of 
unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made 
them joyful." Thus those zealous monotheists, the returned 
Jews, proved that it was no narrow bigotry, but a wise 
insistence upon unity of heart in the worship of the one God, 
that lay at the basis of their refusal of help in the building of 
the temple, at the hands of those religious eclectics, the 
Samaritans. 

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the part 
played by the temple of Zerubbabel in the history of the Jew- 
ish Church. 



Lesson VI.] DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. 5 1 

As the temple of Herod was but an enlargement and adorn- 
ment of that of this prince and ruler in Israel, this temple may 
be said to have withstood the assaults of time for six hundred 
years, till its final destruction by Titus, A. D. 70. During all 
these years it was the centre of the political, intellectual and 
religious life of the Jews. More than any other institution or 
agency, it kept the Jewish Church sound and loyal in heart to 
the worship of Jehovah. In spite of all the hypocrisy and 
corruption that disfigured Jewish civilization, it nourished many 
a bright consummate flower of devotion and piety, of which 
the priest Zacharias and the prophetess Anna were shining 
examples. Through all the fierce wars, defensive and inter- 
necine, of the Jewish people, this temple stood in silent pro- 
test, the smoke of its sacrifices ever ascending to heaven in 
mute pleadings for forgiveness, its cloisters guarding from all 
mutilation and corruption the oracles of God once for all 
delivered to the saints. 

The lessons which this ancient dedication may be made to 
teach us are many and profoundly important. 

Among them we mention these : 

I. The importance of wise leadership in God's work. " Now 
the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of 
Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jeru- 
salem. Then rose up Zerubbabel and Joshua and began to 
build the house of God which is at Jerusalem, and with them 
were the prophets of God helping them." God ever inspires 
the many through the few. The world will never outgrow the 
need of prophets — men born of God and filled with God, who 
see the needs of his Church and refuse his people rest till 
these needs are supplied. 

II. The importance, the profitableness, even, of following 
wise leadership. " Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little ; 
and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why ? 
saith the Lord of Hosts. Because of mine house that lieth 



52 DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. LFiRST Quarter. 

waste, while ye run every man to his own house." To turn a 
deaf ear to God's call, to let his house lie waste, or his cause 
languish for lack of men and means vigorously to push it for- 
ward in all the earth, is in deepest truth to repeat the experience 
of this ancient wealth and pleasure-loving people, of whom the 
prophet Haggai said : "Ye have sown much and bring in little ; 
. . . And he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it 
into a bag with holes." 

III. The indispensableness of the rank and file in every great 
work for God. Cyrus and Darius, Zerubbabel and Joshua, 
Haggai and Zechariah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel — these are 
the names we mention as having a prominent part in the build- 
ing of the second temple, though none of them hewed a timber, 
or squared a stone, or wrought with plane or hammer in its 
construction. But God takes account of the unnamed toilers 
as well as of the honored captains of his hosts. No honest, 
self-sacrificing work for him in any sphere of life, however 
lowly, shall fail of its full and blessed reward. 

IV. The ultimate success of every great work undertaken 
for God. To the children of the captivity returning to Zion, 
with singing, as Isaiah had predicted, many dark days were in 
store. The weight of the Persian yoke still rested heavily upon 
them. Jealous neighbors, disease, famine and death were their 
portion. Mountain-high were the obstacles to the erection 
of the temple. They felt that they could never overcome them. 
But they did. There is no such word as failure in the vocabu- 
lary of him who works for God. Ever can we say of him : 

"Thine was the prophet's vision, thine 
The exultation, the divine, 
Insanity of noble minds, 
That never falters nor abates, 
But labors and endures, and waits, 
Till all it foresees, it finds, 
Or, what it cannot find, creates !" 



Lesson VI.] DEDICATING THE TEMPLE. $$ 

V. God is the greatest factor in every work for God. " They 
builded and finished it according to the commandment of the 
God of Israel." This God had said of Zion by the mouth of 
Isaiah : " Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy 
nursing mothers. . . . The glory of Lebanon shall come 
unto thee." We may well doubt that the returned captives in 
giving " meat and drink and oil unto them of Sidon and to them of 
Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, unto Joppa," 
were aware of the fact that thus they were fulfilling God's 
prophetic purposes. We may well doubt if the entire history 
of this finished temple, seeming to us so plainly providential, 
seemed more so to the toilers upon it than do the common 
affairs of our every-day lives to us. God, however, was in it 
all ; and consciously, or unconsciously, all who wrought for it 
and all who wrought against it were but advancing the purposes 
of him who makes even the wrath of man to praise him. 

VI. Finally, we may well learn from this ancient dedication 
that we must build for God, with God, upon God, if we would 
have our work endure. One greater than the temple, who 
drove from its courts the dealers in oxen, sheep and doves, says 
to us : " Every one therefore that heareth these sayings of 
mine and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man which 
built his house upon the rock." In echo and interpretation of 
these words his greatest apostle says : " Other foundation can 
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any 
man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, 
hay, stubble ; each man's work shall be made manifest." 

" Build thee more stately mansions, 
Oh, my soul, 
As the swift seasons roll ! 
Leave thy low vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outworn shell by life's unresting sea." 



lessoi? l/il. February i2. 



NEHKMIAH'S PRAYER. 
Nehemiah i: i-ii. 

By Rev. FREDERICK L. ANDERSON, Rochester, N. Y. 

THE seventy years' captivity in Babylon was over. Taking 
advantage of the kindly decree of Cyrus, a remnant of 
Israel, numbering about 45,000, had returned to the 
blackened and desolate ruins of their once proud city, under 
the leadership of Zerubbabel ; and after vexatious delays, due 
to the malice of jealous foes, they had succeeded in re-estab- 
lishing their national life and rebuilding the temple of their 
God. It was the new birth of the Jewish people, and was 
hailed by the godly with sacred joy. In the words of the 
Psalmist, " Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our 
tongue with singing : then said they among the heathen, ' The 
Lord hath done great things for them.' " 

But the joy soon turned to sadness, and the praise to suppli- 
cation. "Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in 
the south." The resuscitation of a nation was found to be no 
easy task. The returned exiles were indeed only " a remnant," 
a pitifully small proportion of the whole people, who, for the 
most part, linked to the land of their exile by local, social, and 
commercial ties, were loath to leave their abundance, for what 
must have seemed to many a sentimental pilgrimage which 
could end only in disaster. These " few feeble Jews," inhab- 
iting a city much too large for them, a city, too, which had lost 



Lesson vn.] NEHEMIAH'S PRAYER. 55 

all political and mercantile prestige, and was surrounded by an 
unproductive wilderness, sank gradually into poverty and 
despair. The walls of the city, which they had failed to rebuild, 
remained as Nebuchadnezzar had left them, dismantled and 
broken, the gates burned with fire, the taunt and reproach of 
their enemies, and a perpetual menace and source of weakness 
to the miserable inhabitants. Even the temple which had risen 
again on the old site could not, so felt those who remembered 
that, compare in glory to "the former house." Eighty 
years after the first return, Ezra succeeded in inducing some 
six thousand more to leave the land of their captivity for Jeru- 
salem. But this small contingent, although they brought with 
them large sums of money, and were backed by all the influence 
of the Persian crown, was unable to infuse new life into the de- 
pressed body politic, and the revival of religion inaugurated by 
Ezra during his governorship of eight months seems to have 
effected little of permanent value. 

Twelve years more dragged their slow length along before 
God's set time for the salvation of Zion arrived. But when 
that time did arrive, God had a man ready, a man with shoul- 
ders broad enough, a mind clear enough, and a piety deep 
enough to undertake and carry through the great work of the 
redemption of the chosen city. This man was not found at 
Jerusalem, but, strange as it may seem to some, was occupying 
high position as royal cup-bearer in the palace of the Persian 
king at Susa. 

Let us consider this man whom God had brought into the 
world, and carefully prepared to do a great work for him. 

His name was Nehemiah. He was a Jew, perhaps of the 
royal line. God had given him great wisdom and executive 
ability, and, in all probability, a handsome and commanding 
person. By means of these accomplishments and adornments 
he had commended himself to the great king, Artaxerxes, the 
son of the Xerxes who had so ignominiously failed to conquer 



56 NEHEMIAH's PRAYER. [First Quarter. 

Greece at Salamis, and had been given the confidential post 
of king's cup-bearer. Thus God had advanced him to a 
position of immense influence, and had most richly endowed 
him with natural gifts, just in order that he might use that 
influence and those gifts in his service. 

Dear reader, if God has given you any physical beauty, any 
social grace, any force of character, any intellectual power, any 
little influence in this world of ours, it is that you, too, may use 
all in his service and for his glory. Furthermore, if you do not 
so use God's gifts, but employ them simply to feed your vanity, 
and to increase your own pleasures, or indeed, simply forget 
that they were given to you for a great purpose, you not only 
waste them, but miss the end for which you were born, and 
never, in any true sense, even begin to live the life which is life 
indeed. Here, too, we discover the only right motive in seeking 
wealth, influence, beauty and social power. Every Christian 
man ought, with all his might, to strive for these things, that he 
may the more largely glorify God and bless his fellowmen. 
But, beware, O friend, beware, lest you seek them that you may 
consume them upon your worldly and selfish desires. This is 
naught else but to live for self, and he who lives for self is dead 
while he lives. 

But God had prepared the heart of Nehemiah, also. The 
evidence of this is most beautifully set forth in the opening 
verses of our chapter. Nehemiah's own brother, Hanani, 
accompanied by some others, came from Jerusalem to Susa on 
a mission unknown to us, and they, of course, called on Nehe- 
miah, if they did not lodge at his house. Notice now the 
great interest of Nehemiah in God's chosen people. He does 
not wait for his friends to volunteer information, but he asks 
them concerning the remnant " who had escaped," as though 
this was the matter which most interested his heart. Their 
reply is merely summarized in our account of this conversation. 
We must believe that they described at length and with much 



Lesson VII.] NEHEMIAH'S PRAYER. 5 7 

particularity and pathos the " great affliction and reproach " 
of the Jews and the ruined state of the city wall. These facts 
Nehemiah must, in a general way. have known before, but now 
he hears them from men who have been eye-witnesses of the 
desolation of Zion. and who naturally recount to him the bitter 
taunts of the enemies of God's people. Just as the graphic 
and burning words of the missionary kindle the hearts of those 
who before had a general conception of the heathen's lost 
estate, so the words of these friends roused the heart of 
Nehemiah. The intensity of his grief shows the intensity of 
his love for God's kingdom. It is not a subject for superficial 
condolence or momentary dejection. The iron enters his very 
soul. There is no record of any answer on his part. It is a 
grief too deep for words. The heart knows its own bitterness. 
He turns aside to the solitude of his secret chamber, where he 
may commune with God. When the door is shut, he sits down 
dumb with sorrow. By and by the tear^ come to relieve the 
pent up emotion of his heart. He cares nothing for his food. 
He mourns before Jehovah and prays to the God of heaven. 

Reader, have you such an interest in God's kingdom as 
Nehemiah had in those dark days so long ago ? Do you so 
love it that you seek diligently to know of its prosperity, or are 
you one of those who, caring too little about God's kingdom 
even to take a religious newspaper, wonder how anybody can 
be enthusiastic over missions? Is the news of a triumph of 
Jesus in this world a real joy to you? Is ill news touching his 
kingdom a real sorrow? Is it painful to you that so few are 
converted? Does the prevalent spiritual death drive you to 
secret meditation and earnest prayer? Happy the man who. 
like Paul, carries such sorrows, knows what it is to have " anxiety 
for all the churches," and triumphs in the victories of the 
Prince of Peace. His is the spirit of Christ. 

We have traced so far as we could the hand oi God as it 
prepared a great man to do a great work. Let us now watch 



5 8 NEHEMlAH's PRAYER. [First Quarter. 

the man as he prepares himself to do it. This preparation is 
made in the secret place, in prayer, true prayer, the prayer of 
faith and consecration. The rest of the book shows how the 
Father who seeth in secret rewards his children openly. 

The prayer begins with an acknowledgement of the power 
and faithfulness of God. All true prayer must begin with God. 
"He who cometh to him must believe that he is." "Have 
faith in God," says the Saviour, in the same sentence in which 
he promises the great " whatsoever " to believing prayer. Our 
weakness in prayer is largely due to our unbelief. Oh ! that 
God might ever be to us the most real fact in all the Universe, 
that we might abide in him, and know the peace and the solid- 
ity of purpose which spring from true faith. The trouble is 
that he seems to many a God afar off, dim, misty, vague ; or 
if real, then hard, cold, and mechanical. We scarcely believe 
in him as the living God. Too often we think of him as bound 
hand and foot by his own laws, as powerless to help as the idol 
which grins at the heathen worshiper. In this unchristian 
frame of mind we fall to belittling, modifying, and explaining 
away the exceeding great and precious promises of the Bible, 
till they are in reality exceeding small and worthless. We need 
a revival of true belief in God, the Living God, for whom the 
human heart cries out and whom, to secure real life, it must 
have, the God who upholds all things by the word of his 
power, the great and almighty God, who is able and willing to 
keep all his covenant promises, doing for us above all we are 
able to ask or to think. The reason why Nehemiah was able 
to accomplish such a marvellous work was that he believed in 
such a God. God honored that faith, as he always will, sup- 
plying all the believer's need, through grace. 

"Have faith in God ; what can there be 

Too hard for him to do for thee ? 

He gave his Son. Now all is free. 

Have faith, have faith in God." 
To this God of might and faithfulness Nehemiah now con- 






tESSOX Vli.] NEHEMIAH'S PRAYEfc. 59 

fesses his own sins and the sins of his people. When God is 
exalted, man begins to recognize his true littleness. The 
divine faithfulness ever reminds men of their own faithlessness. 
Nehemiah comes to God as a sinner, pleading for a sinful peo- 
ple. He does not strive to excuse or palliate. He acknowledges 
that their sin is great, very great. " We have dealt very cor- 
ruptly," he says. They had sinned against light, for they had 
the commandments, the statutes and the judgments which God 
gave them by the hand of Moses. Nehemiah identifies him- 
self with the people. He bears their sins before God and con- 
fesses them. So thoroughly does he love his fellow Israelites 
that he stands before God for them, like Moses in the breach. 
No man can truly pray without a sense of the inexcusableness 
and the ill-desert of sin ; and we incline to add, no man can 
truly pray without such love for sinners that he would willingly 
suffer great sacrifices for them. And now the intercessor is 
ready to plead God's promises. He reminds God of his word. 
It is a word at once of judgment and of mercy. "If ye tres- 
pass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples." O Lord, 
thou hast done this. Thy word is sure. Fulfil to us now the 
promise as thou hast the warning. "Yet will I gather them 
thence and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen 
to cause my name to dwell there." And still he recognizes the 
condition and quotes it. " If ye return unto me and keep my 
commandments and do them." How many fail just here ! They 
pray to God. They confess their sins, at least with their lips. 
They repeat the promises, but they forget the condition. 
Repent ! repent ! No man has any right to claim a single one of 
God's promises unless he repents. The exhortation now-a-days 
is, "Only trust him." The exhortation is a good one if we 
remember who only have a right to trust. " Christ receiveth sin- 
ful men," but only when they turn from their sins and seek his 
face with all their heart. Nehemiah knew the place of repent- 
ance and only on that condition claimed the promise of God. 



60 NEHEMtAH'S PRAYED. [First Quarter. 

One more thing he pleads : God's past mercies. God has 
deigned to grant his people great deliverances. " Thou hast 
redeemed them by thy great power, and by thy strong hand." 
If God has done so much for them, surely he will not forsake 
them now. If he has lavished so much love on them, he will 
surely love them still. 

"His love in time past forbids me to think 
He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink. 
Bach, sweet Bbenezer I have in review 
Confirms his good pleasure to help .me quite through." 

" While they are yet speaking, I will hear." In this prayer, 
the great promise is fulfilled. Even while he yet pleads with 
God, a plan takes shape within his mind : he is enabled to offer 
himself as the medium through which his own petition shall be 
answered. He will go to "this man," the king — the informality 
of the reference marks the quickly forming resolution, which 
cannot wait for words. He will crave his favor. He will ask 
to be sent to build the walls of Jerusalem himself, and, " God, 
prosper thy servant, and grant me mercy in the sight of this 
man." 

How many lessons press upon us here ! We offer true prayer 
only when we are willing to do our utmost to answer the prayer 
we offer. " How much do you want this thing?" God might 
well ask, " do you want it enough to work for it, to suffer for 
it, to sacrifice for it?" O, how this searches us and reveals to 
us the hypocrisy, the shallowness and unreality of a great many 
of our prayers, and also the reason why they are not answered. 
We pray for prosperity in this world. Are we willing to toil 
and sacrifice for it? If not, our prayer will not be answered. 
God is not going to be the lazy man's helper. Let us rouse, 
bestir ourselves and go to work. Then God will help us, not 
only through the operation of natural law, but by a real, direct 
and supernatural strengthening. " God helps those who help 



Lesson VII.] nehemiah's PRAYER. 6 1 

themselves." We pray for the conversion of a friend, but we 
have no reason to suppose that friend will be converted, unless 
we are willing to do all we can for his conversion. We must 
desire his conversion enough to work for him patiently, wisely, 
lovingly, to speak the word in season, to live before him the 
spiritual life which shall commend to him the power of the 
gospel to save men — then God will answer our petition. But 
what shall we say of the bald hypocrisy of the man who prays 
for his own salvation, yet refuses to repent ; who prays for the 
kingdom, and puts less than a hundredth of his income aside 
for missions ; who pleads for the spiritual prosperity of the 
Church and then stands in the way of all spiritual progress by 
living an unconsecrated life ! Nehemiah would have missed 
the blessing if, while he pleaded for a deliverer of his people, 
he had not been willing to heed the whisper of the Spirit, " Go 
yourself." Prayer leads to consecration. The lazy and timid 
Christian should be careful how he engages in real prayer. He 
may have some work to do straightway. This is what is meant 
by the saying, " It is dangerous to pray for foreign missions, if 
you do not want to go." And yet all other prayer is worthless, 
" vain repetition," foolish straining of emotion, an empty form. 
Does any one say, " How few answers there are to prayer !" 
I would say, " How few true prayers !" Lay your body a 
living sacrifice on the altar, and you will soon be praising God 
for the answers you receive. 

The great lesson is the lesson of true prayer. True prayer 
brings its answer. True prayer is the only proper and all- 
sufficient preparation for any great work. " Lord, teach us to 
pray." 



lessoty l/lll. February l 9- 



REBUILDING THE WALL. 
Nehemiah iv : g-21. 

By Rev. THOS. S. BARBOUR, Fau, River, Mass. 

THE purpose indicated in the concluding words of Nehe- 
miah's prayer is soon carried into effect. An opportu- 
nity is afforded the royal attendant to present his suit to 
the king. His cause finds favor. And, thirteen years after 
Ezra led his great caravan across the desert, Nehemiah is mak- 
ing his way to his fatherland, commissioned governor of Jeru- 
salem, with authority to restore its walls. Our lesson finds the 
governor in the Jewish capital. He has perhaps stood on Mt. 
Olivet, upon the spot where the feet of so many a pilgrim have 
been arrested in later times, and has looked with contending 
emotions upon the glory and the desolation of the scene revealed 
across the deep ravine. The night-watches have found him 
moving slowly about the circuit of the demolished walls. And 
now, fully informed as to the requirements of the projected 
task, — his plans definitely determined, he enlists the cooperation 
of his countrymen and the work is begun. 

I. THE NATURE OF THE ENTERPRISE. 



Nehemiah's purpose, unlike the aim which brought Ezra to 
Jerusalem, was not distinctively spiritual. It had to do pri- 
marily with the material well-being of his people. But the lay- 



Lesson VIII.] REBUILDING THE WALL. 63 

man's mission, as truly as the priest's, is of commanding claim 
upon the interest of the thoughtful observer. 

1. The work was vitally related to the perpetuation of the 
national life of the Jews. 

It is not surprising that the colony planted by Zerubbabel 
had led but a languishing existence. An unwalled city was an 
anomaly in ancient times. The Jewish capital was at the 
mercy alike of the unfriendly peoples who had found a home 
in the land, and of every wandering band of marauders. More- 
over, privacy was a first essential, if the distinctive spirit and 
civilization of the Jew were to survive. As Nehemiah, in his 
Persian home, had listened to the story of the depressed for- 
tunes of his people, his sagacious mind had recognized at once 
the need that was most urgent. Let Jerusalem be surrounded 
with strong fortifications as of old. Then would security return. 
Then might the national spirit revive. Then city and nation 
should hold once more an honorable place among the peoples 
of the earth. 

2. The work was vitally related to the divinely- appointed 
mission of the Jews. 

"When falls the coliseum, Rome shall fall, 
And when Rome falls, — the world." 

What Roman vanity is represented as alleging as to its shrine 
of pleasure, Jewish faith might truthfully affirm of its temple of 
worship. We may believe that Nehemiah was neither blind nor 
indifferent to the deeper significance of his work. We know 
his attachment to the religious faith of his people. His foreign 
training would tend to make him responsive to the prophetic 
voices which, with ever-increasing clearness, were speaking of 
a vital relation between the faith of Judah and hope for man- 
kind. But whatever may be true as respects Nehemiah 's 
thought, we at least know well that with the preservation of the 
Jewish national life, there was involved the accomplishment of 



64 REBUILDING THE WALL. [First Quarter. 

the supreme purpose of divine grace. The Jewish State was 
as a great chrysalis-case, guarding a life infinitely precious, a life 
which one day, grown to fulness of strength, was to fly forth 
into the world with healing in its wings. 

3. The work was the accomplishment of a divine decree. 

So the prophet Daniel, taught by the angel, assures us. And 
certainly, at the present day, it is not difficult to discern in the 
work the moving of the Hand that is stretched out upon the 
nations. Very wonderful is the story of that strange city which, 
outlasting more than twenty sieges, its soil twice given up to 
the ploughshare, still survives. The Chaldean king, like the 
Roman general in later days, had declared that such a centre 
of revolt must be blotted from the earth. His wrath did its 
utmost. But, in due time, the city rose from its ashes. It rose 
because the mission, for which a greater king had chosen it, 
was as yet unfulfilled. 

II. THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. 

Nehemiah's project was one for which no spirit less 
resolute than that which he brought to the task would have 
availed. The work was heavy. There was much rubbish to be 
cleared away. And many a huge stone must be raised from 
the debris, newly-dressed, and fitted to its place in the massive 
masonry. Not a few of the people soon grew dispirited- 
But more serious than these incidental difficulties was the 
opposition offered by neighboring peoples. These alien races 
were as one man in the determination that the Jews should 
never again have a fortified capital in the land. Three men, 
each an official of one of the hostile peoples,, were unresting 
in their bitter resistance to the work. As they learned of the 
new governor's purpose, they were satisfied at first to greet it 
with a mocking laugh. As the task was entered upon, they 
broke out into contemptuous derision. But when the work was 
seen to be rapidly advancing, their rage knew no bounds. What 



Lesson VIII.] REBUILDING THE WALL. 65 

their ridicule had failed to effect, force of arms should now 
accomplish. 

Is it not singular that the opposition encountered by Nehe- 
miah should have sprung chiefly from a people who had professed 
themselves worshippers of Jehovah? The Samaritans had 
offered to join in the work of rebuilding the temple. Doubtless 
they justified their present antagonism to Judah. Their offer 
had been refused. Their daughters, too, having intermarried 
with the Jews, had been put away. Regarding the case from 
their point of view, we may be inclined to think their indigna- 
tion not unnatural. But what verdict that any other could 
pronounce upon this people would be severe as that which they 
pronounced upon themselves ? They had acknowledged that 
Jerusalem was the seat of Jehovah's worship. Yet they ceased 
not to oppose its welfare. Clearly their zeal for Jehovah was 
largely mixed with baser metal. It is to be feared that there 
may be in the world to-day something of fancied piety which, 
if well sifted, would be found to contain a large admixture of 
self-love. It is a severe test of devotion which sometimes 
comes to men in the crossing of their preferences and the 
humbling of their pride. But it cannot be called other than 
a trustworthy test. The piety which curdles under the influence 
of personal disappointment or humiliation, can hardly be 
regarded as genuine devotion. 

Strange, too, that these troublers of the Jews should have 
pursued their vindictive course in the face of signal evidence 
that they were warring against God. The Samaritans were 
familiar with the writings which had foretold the return of 
Judah from her captivity. And the marvelous fulfilment of the 
prophecy was revealed before their eyes. 

Our lesson finds the difficulties of the work at their culmi- 
nation. For some time, rumors have come in of the hostile 
purpose of the enemy. And soon, in the very hour when the 
discouraged workers are declaring themselves spent, and pro- 

5 



66 REBUILDING THE WALL. [First Quarter. 

nouncing the work hopeless, tidings are brought from many 
quarters of a proposed attack by which it is designed to sur- 
prise and massacre the exhausted laborers. 

HI. THE PLAN PURSUED. 

Is it possible to imagine a wiser procedure than that by which 
the people of Judah met the exigency that was upon them ? 

i. They prayed. Perhaps they took up the strains of a song 
they had often heard their Levites sing, — "Except the Lord 
build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the 
Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." And 
so he, who through recognition of dependence upon him, giv- 
eth his beloved sleep, gave tranquil calm to these beleagured 
men. 

2. They armed themselves and watched. Observe that the 
conjunction is and, not but! " We made our prayer unto our 
God and set a watch." There is no want of harmony between 
reliance upon God and employment of the resources which 
God puts into our hands. Prayer and activity have a common 
source in genuine desire ; and if the one be real, the other will 
not be wanting. And let none suppose that to recognize the 
honoring of human activity as God's more common method 
of answering prayer, in any wise detracts from the greatness 
and beneficence of his working. What other good gift which 
the Heavenly Father can bestow upon his children is so 
greatly to be desired as increase of personal purity and strength ? 
The supreme value of a prayerful life, whatever may be the 
incidental good obtained, is found in the refining work accomp- 
lished by association with God. Bit, if this be so, shall we 
wonder that God has chosen to put high honor upon the per- 
sonal effort by which the soul is uplifted and made strong? 

The imperilled Jews were unremitting in their watch. Their 
plans changed somewhat as the situation altered. At the first 



Lesson VIII.] REBUILDING THE WALL. 67 

indefinite rumor of danger, sentinels were posted. When 
warning was given of the imminent assault, the whole company 
were furnished with arms ; and, encouraged by the cheery voice 
of their leader, they stood ready to repel the attack. And 
when the immediate danger was averted, they were watchful 
still. Happy the man who, in the field of moral combat, dis- 
plays a like wisdom ! So often, a first repulse of the enemy, 
mistaken for a final victory, has led on to ultimate disaster. 
How important then the lesson taught us by the Jew. One 
company of the governor's personal retinue was at hand with 
full supply of weapons for their comrades who toiled upon the 
wall. The nobles rendered a like service for the people. Each 
laborer retained a weapon. And provision was made for a 
quick concentration of forces in the event of a sudden assault. 

3. They persisted in the work. The disheartened found new- 
strength, and the work was pushed on. In this again, the men 
of Judah were wise. It would have counted for little that they 
prayed and watched, had the days gone by leaving the work 
no farther advanced. A religious life devoted solely to watch- 
fulness and prayer would be largely a wasted life. For the 
world is more than a battle-field. It is a harvest-field, where 
the laborers are few. With these Jews, prayer and watchfulness 
were but tributary to the work before them. So they persisted 
in their labor. Only at the time of imminent peril was the 
work for a little interrupted. Then they toiled on. 

The conditions indeed were unfavorable. The peril was 
real. And single-handed work was difficult. But it is those 
who will work, whatever the difficulties under which they 
labor, who win. Profoundly significant is the advice given by 
Paul to Timothy, as he bids him to labor " out of season." 
Alike in building a wall, in gaining an education, in competing 
for success in business, in doing the work to which Christ calls 
us for the redemption of mankind, it is one's "out of season" 
work that is likely to determine the measure of his success. 



68 REBUILDING THE WALL. [First Quarter. 

Such was the noble group of devices with which the men of 
Judah met the problem facing them. Praying, watching, toil- 
ing, they resolutely confronted all difficulties. 

IV. THE TRAITS OF CHARACTER DISPLAYED. 

Rarely has there been seen a finer illustration of the qualities 
belonging to genuine manliness. The traits revealed were 
primarily those characterizing the leader, as shown by the 
whole story of his life. The spirit of Nehemiah lived on. 

How attractive the display of these qualities which we are 
wont to associate with distinctively practical character ! 
Observe the commander's self-restraint. Mockery cannot af- 
fect the calmness of his spirit, or disturb the balance of his 
mind. He is prudent. He takes no needless risk, omits no 
wise precaution. He has a faculty for prompt decision. 
Swiftly, decisively, his plans are formed. And see too his 
never-relaxing determination, — the same revealed in the reply 
with which afterward he baffles the craft of his enemies, — " I 
am doing a great work so that I cannot come down." His 
courage, as well, is invincible. And note withal the splendid 
energy of the man, which supports him through the day's toil 
and the night's unresting vigils, which throbs in every effort, 
which communicates itself to his dispirited followers, and bears 
the work irresistibly on. 

Not less inspiring was the revelation of those qualities per- 
taining distinctively to personal piety. Observe the leader's 
never-faltering faith, — the faith which had affirmed at the 
beginning, — "The God of heaven, he will prosper us," — and 
which, to the end, never once lost its sublime confidence. See 
the devoutness of spirit which recognizes God's hand when 
deliverance is given, — " Our enemies heard that God had 
brought their councils to nought." Observe again the personal 
attachment to Jehovah, less definitely revealed indeed than in 



Lesson VIII.] REBUILDING THE WALL. 69 

later scenes of Nehemiah's history, but betrayed even here in 
the title that seems to spring involuntarily from his loyal heart, — 
" Our God shall fight for us." 

Such was this man whom God sent across the desert for the 
help of his people. If to the qualities here disclosed, there be 
added the princely generosity which marked the ruler's dealings 
with his fellow-countrymen, — his intense scorn of injustice, his 
strict fidelity to his earthly sovereign, — must it not be owned 
that even the gallery opened for us in the Jewish Scriptures has 
few nobler portraits than that of this high-minded, large-hearted, 
intrepid official? 

" This shows, methinks, God's plan 
And measure of a stalwart man." 

The traits of character shown in the work we have said were 
primarily those of Nehemiah. But so resplendently did these 
heroic graces shine in the person of the commander, that the 
dullest-souled in all the company of his people seemed for a 
time to reflect the glory. The restored national life of Judah 
is at its best as the Jews are seen rebuilding their wall. 

V. THE RESULT. 

There is scarcely need to speak of the issue of the story 
which we have been following. Of course the enemy was 
repulsed. It was a bloodless victory. The adversary struck not 
a single blow. In conflicts with foes of flesh and blood, the 
record of the most valiant will sometimes be different as respects 
this feature. But in spiritual warfare the result is always such. 

The wall rose. In less than two months, the work was ended. 
And, in due season, about the restored fortifications of the 
capital, the triumphal procession passed. The harps awoke. 
The cymbals clashed. Choirs of singers raised triumphant 
songs. The whole city joined in one glad outburst of exultant 
praise. "And the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." 



J6 REBUILDING THE WALL. [First Quarter. 

CONCLUDING LESSONS. 

The story is thick-strewn with lessons, — lessons of cheer, — 
lessons of admonition. Some of these we have remarked. 
But two suggestions of a more comprehensive character we 
should not fail to note before turning from the spirited scene. 
The two lessons, in truth, are but reverse sides of a single 
thought. The qualities which here are joined together ought 
never to be put asunder. 

The one greatest need of the so-called secular life of the 
people of God is that the hallowed principles which Nehemiah 
bore to the work of building a wall, shall be brought to our 
daily tasks. Faith in God, recognition of God's relationship to 
all things, devotion to God, let these things always be in us and 
abound, and the " secular " shall become sacred, transfigured 
even as by the glory of God. 

Not less important is the second suggestion. The one 
greatest need of our religious service is that we shall bring to 
it the sturdy qualities which give vigor to secular enterprises. 
Self-restraint, prudence, decision, the ambition to do, the fixed, 
determined will and courage " never to submit or yield," — 
these are supreme needs of Christ's Church, alike for individual 
service and for united achievement. 

So let our lives find in this exalted alliance a noble unity. 
Then, though the work which they accomplish be less imposing 
than that revealed when, through Nehemiah's fidelity, the walls 
of the Holy City rose from the debris of the hill-side, yet of 
this we may be confident : Our lives shall yield results accep- 
table to him who called us to his service. And in that endur- 
ing structure which the Great Architect is raising through the 
centuries, it may be found, at length, that we have builded of 
gold and silver and precious stones. 



Igssoi? I/, February 26. 



READING THE LAW.* 

Nehemiah viii: 1-12. 

By Rev. THOMAS E. BARTlyETT, Providekce, R. I. 

IN any age of Israel the scene portrayed in this chapter 
would have been deeply significant. A multitude com- 
posed of men, women and youth listens from daylight to 
high noon to the Book of God, while men distinguished for 
their learning, their piety, their rank, direct the teaching. Had 
such an assembly met for such a purpose in the dark days of 
the Judges we should have looked for the speedy discomfiture 
of the Ammonite or the Philistine. Had it occurred in Heze- 
kiah's reign when the might of Assyria was pressing hard 
against every fortress of Western Asia, and even the stronghold 
of Zion was mapped for assault, we should have been prepared 
for the angel's flight to the Assyrian camp, the overthow of 
Sennacherib's pride and the deliverance of Jerusalem's im- 
prisoned myriads. The scene before us is placed in a later 
age, in the dire emergency of enfeebled Israel, when a poor 
fragment of the nation was making an attempt to rise above 
the great national disaster. The Babylonian has executed 
God's decree against Jerusalem. The Persian has given the 

* The sermon for this date was to have been written by Rev. R. 
M. Martin, who unfortunately became ill before he could prepare it. 



72 READING THE LAW. [First Quarter. 

word for the sons of Israel to return and rear again their 
fallen altars. Caravans from the east have come to the desolate 
hills of Judah. While Israel's millions are scattered among 
the gentiles and, except by their offerings, take no part in the 
return, Israel's thousands, pensioners of a foreign master, 
colonists beset by enemies, are striving to build again, amid the 
memories of their nation's greatness, a little Jewish state. 

I. THE SCENE AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE. 

We are in the Jerusalem of the Restoration. Yonder is the 
temple of Zerubbabel, an impoverished imitation of Solomon's 
splendid work. The profuse gold, the artistic workmanship, the 
cloud of glory are absent, and behind the veil, instead of ark 
and cherubim, only emptiness. Yonder is the protecting wall ; 
it is new, and it is done. It is the product of sacrifice and 
courage, a visible proof that the spirit of the Hebrew race is 
yet alive. Jerusalem is a city again ; its reproach in the eyes 
of the heathen is rolled away. Self-respect revives behind 
those ramparts. In sympathy with this heroic people, look 
around and call the place Jerusalem ; but notice that it is still 
little more than an enclosure, its palaces heaps of rubbish, 
made to seem more desolate by the growth of thorns and briars 
upon them, its ancient streets obliterated or grass- grown, its slop- 
ing acres still half covered with the debris of the former city, a 
place so ruinous that even Jews deemed it a sacrifice to dwell 
there. Here the congregation of Israel, gathered from village 
and farm of Judea, is assembled for worship. Temple and 
sacrifice do not rivet their attention now. As by a common im- 
pulse they turn their thoughts from their manifest poverty and 
weakness to their single bright possession, unmarred by national 
calamity, their solace in captivity, the inspiration of the return, 
the peculiar glory of the rising nationality. It was the revela- 
tion given to their fathers. The Sacred Books had been con- 



Lesson IX.] READING THE LAW. 73 

firmed by the ruin of the kingdom ; they were now commended 
anew to the children's faith by the revival of Jerusalem. 

Two great reformers are present, Ezra the scribe and Nehe- 
miah the civil ruler ; but neither of these needs to prompt the 
demonstration of reverence for the word of God. A widespread 
desire to hear the very words of the ancient Law, moved the 
assembly, and Ezra with the sacred roll but responds to this 
longing. The writer gives ample materials for a great historic 
painting. Impressed that this was one of the great days in the 
national history, he lingers to make events vivid before the eye. 
The locality where the Book was read was memorable, "the 
street that was before the water gate." The month and the day 
must be noted. Even the names of the six men who stood at 
Ezra's right, and the names of the seven who stood at his left, 
are given ; then the opening of the book, the spontaneous ris- 
ing up of the congregation, the prayer of Ezra, the people's 
response with hands raised to heaven, the band of interpreters 
who were making the reading clear to a generation losing its 
hold on the national language, the tears that filled all eyes as 
the meaning of God's word became plain ; then the quick re- 
solve of Nehemiah and Ezra that this people, at the dawn of 
national hope, amid scenes which would often enough start irre- 
sistible tears, must now be diverted from grief and turned 
rather to joy in view of such manifest grace from God as had 
brought them to that hour and that spot — is not the scene put 
vividly before the eye ? See this fragment of a ruined nation 
in hope of a better future, rallying around that law for breaking 
which the fathers had brought destruction upon the kingdom. 
See this assembly, on the site of Israel's former power, trying to 
prove worthy of the best part of their people's wonderful his- 
tory, giving reverence to the written revelation which was the 
glory of the past and contained the hope of the future. Read 
this chapter and the two which follow ; hear the touching and 
noble confession of the nation's inveterate sin : witness the 



74 READING THE LAW. [First Quarter. 

making of the covenant henceforth to keep God's law ; mark the 
leaders signing and sealing their pledge, on some great roll, in 
the presence of the whole assembly. That written covenant was 
but an attempt to give expression to the convictions wrought 
by the reading of the Law. Oh, those eighty-four names of the 
chiefs of the Restoration ! The list is dreary enough for per- 
functory reading. But those signatures tell us that the restored 
nationality has read aright Israel's history, has discerned its 
hope of perpetuity, has interpreted with insight its mission on 
earth ; and, feeble as the nation is, has seriously addressed itself 
to its commission as trustee of a divine revelation. Such was the 
spirit of the multitude that listened to the reading of the law. 
Point now, if you must, to the city of Nehemiah as a poor 
shadow of the Jerusalem of the Kings. Tell us to look in vain 
for material magnificence in the rising city. Remind us that 
the Temple can never recover its lost glory, and must be con- 
tent to wait for Haggai's spiritual hope to be fulfilled, when 
Christ should walk that Temple's floor. Call the prince of 
Jerusalem a mere Persian officer. Our interest is not lessened. 
We still see a more thrilling spectacle than temporal greatness 
could ever furnish. We see these descendents of Abraham, 
but lately come from the land of the enemy, standing there in 
conscious weakness, yet knowing well that they represent a 
people which received promises from heaven, and now kindling 
their hope that a gracious God will yet through them bring 
about a glorious fulfilment. They have come back not merely 
to build again the city of their fathers. A high religious motive 
was the impelling power in their arduous enterprise. Leaders 
such as Ezra and Nehemiah had glimpses of the invisible and, 
while building up a nation on the soil of Canaan, looked for- 
ward in dim hope to the far away hour when there should be in 
Bethlehem a birth of David's great Son. Earthly power, a great 
population, national independence were not theirs; in their 
poverty they prized the more their spiritual treasures, the 



tKSSON IX.] READING THE LAW. 75 

heavenly wisdom, the far-reaching hopes, which had been given 
to Israel. 

II. THE OUTCOME IN LATER TIMES. 

I have given an ideal coloring, it is true, to this historic 
painting. The chronicler is not the historian of a nation. The 
bare facts do not fully represent the truth. Hopes, aspirations, 
purposes which move a people in a crisis of their career, results 
which no contemporary could clearly foresee, give moral gran- 
deur to great historic movements ; and these must find place 
in any faithful portrayal of an epoch-making scene. 

The prosaic critic will needlessly remind us that a covenant 
in writing, signed and sealed, may have no more power over 
wayward hearts than a covenant made with spoken words ; that 
this solemn compact was not kept, that evil did not disappear 
from Jerusalem, that the reformer was often needed there in 
subsequent days. Having eyes he sees not. Generations 
must pass before the power of a great reform will come out in 
mighty manifestation. Is it indeed so blameworthy to stand 
over a rippling brooklet, whose swelling current will become a 
river and bear the commerce of cities, and be respectful as in 
the presence of greatness ? 

1. This was "the birthday of Judaism," and Judaism was 
great. Henceforth the heart of Israel bowed in supreme, if 
sometimes in fanatical reverence before the law of Moses, 
The scribe took the place of the priest ; the pulpit took the 
place of the altar ; scripture and prayer and teaching, the com- 
fort of the exile, made a new religious service in Jerusalem, and 
one more popular than the restored ritual of the temple ; con- 
gregations became participants and not merely spectators in 
meetings for worship, the synagogue even in Judea was not 
overshadowed by the temple, in gentile cities the synagogue 
was a light in the darkness. In a nation which had such a 
priceless literature, the elevation of the scribe was natural and 



76 READING THE LAW. [Firs? OtjARfER. 

fitting. The synagogue service gave opportunity for continual 
preaching. The inauguration at the second founding of Jeru- 
salem of the public reading of the sacred books was prophetic 
of better days. From that day the public reading of the scrip- 
tures has not ceased. Five centuries later, looking backward 
toward that day of Ezra, James in the early church said, 
" Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that 
preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." 
The synagogue, the beloved institution of Judaism, became 
the model of the local Christian church, and its simple service, 
taking to itself the bright supplement of the new revelation, 
passed with little change into Christian assemblies, and the 
sound thereof, echoed from one land to another and from age 
to age, will not die away. 

2. The Maccabean age with its martyrs and heroes was 
another outcome of this turning of the nation to its sacred law. 
Read in I Maccabees the story of Jewish woes under the heel 
of the furious Syrian king ; how the religion of Israel was 
assailed with malignant hate, how the sacred books were 
appointed to destruction, how Jews fell before the persecutor 
in city and hamlet as martyrs for the word of God ; how the 
spirit of the nation kindled to meet the terrible crisis. Jews 
were willing to suffer for their law; they could not endure the 
sight of Bibles defiled, torn asunder and burned before them. 
When but a leader appeared they were ready to hazard battle 
with overwhelming odds in defence of their law, and they were 
able to conquer in its name. Syrian persecution and fierce 
Maccabean vengeance met as angry seas, and the people of the 
Book prevailed. The work of Ezra had not been in vain. 

3. The preservation of the Hebrew Bible is another of the 
momentous products of forces set in motion by Ezra and Nehe- 
miah. Scribes stepped to the front in the great historic scene. 
From that day the order of the Scribes had a foremost place 
in the nation. They received a precious trust and they magni- 



Lesson IX.] READING THE LAW. 77 

fied their office ; they served their nation and the world by the 
will of God ; they taught the unlearned the Scriptures of their 
fathers ; they laid the wisdom of heaven upon the nation's heart. 
They did, indeed, copy the Sacred Books with scrupulous care, 
and they taught coming generations how to revere even the 
letter of the Law; but copying was not their chief service. 
Books cannot long survive simply as material things. The 
thoughts they contain must be respected and loved if the books 
are to live ; and Israel was taught by the Scribes for generations 
to revere its chief treasure, and the nation, devoted to the Book, 
kept that Book safe for all later times. 

III. LESSONS. 

First, Some things are settled. 

People and leaders alike recognized a final authority in a 
book. Coming to the Pentateuch they felt that they were 
reaching the court of last appeal. When they should hear its 
voice and understand it, controversy must end. A text of 
Scripture, in their judgment, would be the signal for debate to 
cease. Every generation needs to take a fresh hold upon the 
truth that the Bible is a book of conclusions, and infinitely 
precious on that account. 

We begin life in blank ignorance. When but a few years 
pass we are facing responsibilities. Must we meet them with 
wisdom acquired by experience, or by the unaided mind of 
man? I know how eager we are to learn by experience. But 
there are some things which, if learned in this way, will cripple 
our earthly life or end our experience on earth. If the silence 
of the sky had not been broken, we could not have forced its 
secrets. Who could have whispered to his own soul, K I am 
living now under the care of a kind God, with a charge to do 
his will, and shall pass at death into higher joys," and had 
assurance of the truth of his words if no voice had given God's 



78 READING THE LAW. [First Quarter. 

thoughts ? We needed to know some things about the here- 
after, that we might bring thoughts of endless life and peace 
into our brief days of pain. We needed some definite answers 
to the ever-recurring questions prompted by the mystery of 
human life : Whence ? And why ? And whither ? The Scrip- 
tures answer with authority and not as ancient or modern scribes. 
The Scriptures give us a canopy of fixed stars. In our voyage 
across the sea of life, we fix our eyes either on some dim lantern 
hung at the mast, moving with every movement of our vessel, 
or we take our reckoning by the stars of a divine revelation, 
which storms cannot obscure or passing ages dim. 

The Bible, with its clear disclosures, its fixed precepts, its 
inspiring promises, is the true guide of man. Our doubts and 
fears cannot change it. It was here on earth when we came ; 
it will remain when we are gone. It will bless others if we refuse 
its blessings. 

Second, The Scriptures richly deserve the homage of mind 
and heart. 

Those men in the days of old, rose up at the sight of the 
Sacred Roll. They performed an act that day so expressive of 
the nation's quickened reverence, that it was repeated for ages 
in Israel. Tell us, wise men, did they not revere the fairest 
wisdom known in any part of the ancient world? All subse- 
quent ages have not produced books which can render obsolete 
those treasures of the Hebrew race. In elevation of thought, 
in solemn grandeur, in beauty not dependent on the witchery 
of words, in self-evidencing authority over the conscience and 
the heart of man, the Scriptures are unapproachable. What 
intellectual greatness can they not instruct and thrill ? What 
mental weakness can they not comfort and quicken? The 
power of a thousand national reformations lies sleeping there. 
For nations as for individuals, its words are spirit and life. 

When opposed to this authority, what is the trustworthiness 
of the so-called church, or that of the poor infallibility of a 



Lesson IX.] READING THE LAW. 79 

Roman pontiff, or the equally presumptuous and not less pitiable 
opinion on mysteries which angels cannot pierce, of the next man 
you meet? "I have dreamed, I have dreamed," said the false 
prophets to Jeremiah. Their successors in later times change 
the formula a little, saying, "I think, I think," and the canopy 
of the ancient stars is assailed. Is there eternal life ? Is there 
a heaven for man ? Is God love ? " Perhaps, perhaps," says the 
unwearied and unthinking echo of stouter unbelief. But what 
is the chaff to the wheat ? Men know the difference, and they 
know which is the wheat. 

Whether we examine the Bible itself, or any offered substitute 
for its lofty conceptions, we are almost equally assured that our 
homage given to the Book is not misplaced. The people of 
Ezra's day passed their life in a dim age ; they were poor, and 
they were beset with hardships ; but in their reverence for the 
Book of God, they stood "in the foremost files of time." 



lessen? /. (\\arQ\) 5. 



KEEPING THE SABBATH. 

Nehemiah xiii: 15-22. 

By Rev. EDWARD HOLYOKE, Providence, R. I. 

THE Sabbath of the Jews was at once a religious ordinance 
and a national institution. This double authority of a 
theocratic state rendered the work of Sabbath reform 
peculiarly simple. The pious cup-bearer to Ahasuerus, having 
elected himself ruler, rebuilder and reformer, coolly gives the 
order and the city gates are closed each sixth day eve ; sacri- 
legious venders and victuallers are left to lodge before the walls 
or be driven away altogether, and the profaned Sabbath is 
avenged. "Excellent," says our modern Sabbatarian. Our 
Sunday, too, is haunted by luxury-venders, paper-hawkers, ball 
nines, steam-engines and even " ship-wrights," such as Ham- 
let's, " whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the 
week." So we sometimes cry, " Oh, for a Nehemiah and his 
legal wall of protection to shut them out of the city ! " 

Such a proceeding might be effective, but would it in our 
day be legitimate ? Can a nation which maintains utter cleav- 
age between state and church have recourse to a theocratic 
method and policy? Must a people who glory in liberty of 
conscience be remanded to the yoke of Judaic bondage ? If 
not, what help can the example of Nehemiah give us? If 
none, shall we relinquish the Lord's Day to total desecration ? 



tESSON X.] KEEPING THE SABBATH. 3 1 

Or is there some eternal and universal principle by which we 
may truly " keep the Sabbath " on the Lord's Day? 

The question is a pressing one. Whether or not we can solve 
it as Nehemiah did, his problem is ours, thoroughly modern, 
like most of those brought before us by ancient Scripture. It 
is not abstract, not merely religious or moral, but profoundly 
practical Of this the cry for and against opening the Colum- 
bian Exposition on Sunday is but part of the proof. The labor- 
ing masses, Christians or not, are interested in the fate of Sun^ 
day, and already begin to clamor for their lost day of rest. 
Society owes it to them, yet acts more and more against their 
interest in the matter. The work performed on Sunday is less 
than is commonly supposed, but in our country it is increasing, 
labor required by luxuries being continually added to " works of 
necessity." 

While our American Sunday is slowly relaxing its traditional 
severity, the tide of agitation for Sunday is rising in the most 
unexpected quarters, and in a signal manner. Leon Say, the 
eminent political economist, president of the strong society in 
France for the propagation of Sunday observance, writes : 
" Our society unanimously recognizes that a weekly day of rest 
is indispensable to the working classes. Two years ago we 
numbered twenty members, to-day we count over 2,500, repub- 
licans, monarchists, Catholics and Protestants, bishops and 
free thinkers. In the post office we have got the hours 
shortened on Sunday, and we are now laboring with the rail- 
road companies." A similar movement has begun in Germany. 

The balance of power, as well as the burden of responsibility, 
concerning the treatment of the Lord's Day rests with the 
Lord's people. Sunday is the heritage and charge of the 
Church. No external foe can break it down without help from 
religious people. What is our duty? It is of small use to 
petition for the Sunday closing of the World's Fair against the 
poor, and take no further action. The entire question of Sun- 

6 



82 KEEPING THE SABBATH. [First Quarter. 

day keeping suggested by the episode from Nehemiah, needs 
candid discussion. 

It must be conceded that the Jewish Sabbath, as such, does 
not constitute sufficient foundation for obligation in this depart- 
ment of conduct. Its law was given to an infant race, as a 
preliminary and provisional rule, a garment for temporary pro- 
tection to be cast aside as a swaddling band when outgrown. 
For that people it was a positive ordinance, a sign of the Old 
Covenant, and ending with that. The New Testament contains 
more argument against the perpetuity of the Jewish Sabbath 
than in favor of any Sabbath. In fact, the obligation per- 
petually to observe it is there both expressly and impliedly 
denied. The foundation of sabbatic practice is the Fourth 
Commandment. But can the Decalogue or any part of it, as 
distinguished by the Christ from the spirit of it, which is 
undoubtedly moral and so perpetual, be binding on the Christian 
world ? Has not the letter of all Old Testament command been 
abrogated by the higher law of Christ? The political and 
ceremonial element in the Sabbath law was temporary ; the 
eternal and moral element was recognized, rescued and re- 
established by him. The Jewish Sabbath, as such, has passed 
away ; the divine Sabbath of rest and worship remains for a 
higher and freer development in the Christian world. 

For this reason it is difficult to see how the duty of observing 
Sunday can rest on the Fourth Commandment. Such a posi- 
tion proves either nothing or too much. All that may be 
proved from Scripture for the perpetuity of the Sabbath holds 
good for Saturday. If we will have the literal Sabbath, we are 
driven to the seventh day, in accordance with the strictest Sab- 
batarianism ; there is no valid middle ground. 

The letter killeth ; the spirit giveth life. The spiritual princi- 
ple shadowed forth in the old abides as a foundation for the 
new day of the Lord. There is a divine Sabbath. " There is 
an element of rest in the divine nature itself." Six days of 



Lesson X.] KEEPING THE SABBATH. 83 

work and one of rest is the authoritative rule. Failure to dis- 
tinguish between the sacred ; voluntary rest of the Creation and 
the enforced inactivity of the Jew is fatal to any satisfactory 
theory of a Christian rest day. 

That divine Sabbath which was the foundation of the infer- 
ior institution of Judaism is also the basis of the higher institu- 
tion, which is distinct from the Jewish Sabbath and peculiar to 
Christianity. The first day of the week, called by the Apostles 
the " Lord's Day," not only enshrines the typical rest of God 
as exemplary for his people, but it is still further divine in that 
it is pre-eminently Christian. Jesus himself kept the old day, 
because be recognized the divine foundation which underlay 
the temporary superstructure of Judaism. Yet he taught the 
deep significance of the old, to be herald and prophesy of the 
new ordinance, which should be not for one but for all peoples. 
The new Sabbath is to be an element of a Christo-centric faith. 
The difference is not simply a change of day ; it is a change of 
dispensation, of divine method in redemption. The precepts 
and usages relating to the Sabbath must not be transferred to 
the Lord's Day. The new is builded on the ruins of the old. 
The last seventh is the sepulchre's sleep ; the first day of the 
week is the risen Lord's. 

The divinest thing about Sunday is its Christianity. Could 
any cause less than the risen Christ have produced a world- 
Sabbath? Christianity is the religion of the resurrection ; Sun- 
day is the resurrection day. So it was to the Apostles and so 
should it ever be to us. Their inspired example and the great 
fact it commemorates, constitute our authority for the obser- 
vance of Sunday. And there is no other. The Apostles never 
cite the fourth commandment. The early fathers never refer 
to it as a reason for the Sunday rest. For two centuries the 
Lord's Day was never confounded with the Sabbath, but was 
always sharply distinct from it, kept with a larger liberty and in 
a totally different spirit. The Sabbatarianism through whose 



84 KEEPING THE SABBATH. [First Quarter. 

glasses colored with prejudice we look, was a growth mainly 
later than the fifth century. The reasons which we now give 
for Sabbath observance, borrowed from judaizing and puritani- 
cal influences, were abhorrent to the early Church, especially to 
Gentile Christians. 

For the man of faith the chief benefit from Sunday is its 
worship. " On a Sabbath morning in New England," says 
Hawthorne, " the air is meet for mankind to breathe into their 
hearts and send it forth again as the utterance of prayer." To 
God's people this is so of Sunday everywhere. Of course, time 
is merely subjective and relative. All times alike are sacred to 
time's Founder. If Sunday is sacred, Monday is not profane. 
Yet for the Christian, Sunday is a specially consecrated day, the 
centre of most hallowed associations, and the channel of most 
precious spiritual blessings. Its worship suggests not " workshop " 
but the "worthship" of the living God. 

The Christian's faith touching Sunday finds expression in the 
Latin sentences of an early writer, freely translated thus : " Day 
of the Lord's Resurrection, — sacred to so many and great mys- 
teries of the divine dispensation that whatever is fixed as 
worthiest by the Lord may be observed in the excellence of 
that day. On this day the world began. On this day, through 
the resurrection, death received its ruin and life its true begin- 
ning. On this day the Apostles received the trumpet of the 
gospel that is to be preached to all nations, and the sign of 
regeneration to be borne throughout the world. This day, the 
doors being closed, when Jesus had entered into the midst of 
them, he breathed on them and said, 'Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost.' On this day the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord carne 
to the disciples. So that we have learned it as a divine rule, 
given by example and handed down to us, that the mysteries 
of sacerdotal blessing should be celebrated by us on that day 
in which are gathered all the gifts of grace." 

For the keeping of Sunday, or if any one will, the Christian 



Lesson X.] KEEPING THE SABBATH. 85 

Sabbath, we in vain seek exact or direct precepts, even in the 
gospel. " The omission of particularities is characteristic of 
the New Testament," says Dean Stanley, and in this instance it 
is also a strong guarantee of the universality of the Lord's Day 
observance in the primitive church. As authority for Sunday 
keeping we should expect a broad and enduring principle, 
carrying in it a universal " ought," and where shall we find such 
but on the lips of the Lord himself? His teaching as to the 
old day is our best guide touching the new. For what was 
the Sabbath given ? " The Sabbath was made for man, not 
man for the Sabbath." The welfare of humanity ; this is 
Christ's universal category of command, under which Sabbath 
observance is a particular item. Human weal is both physical 
and spiritual ; it unites in itself the human and the divine. A 
partial view of religious duty has led to " over-statements and 
over-strictness solely from the divine side, and to under-state - 
ments and laxity solely from the human side." But as to Sun- 
day duty, are there two sides? Sunday is not for souls alone, 
or for bodies alone ; it is for both. At present there is great 
disagreement as to what ought to be done on Sunday. But in 
the principle enounced by Jesus the divided opinions of 
clergymen and the varying practice of laymen may converge. 
The Lord's Day is meant for a means of grace and health to 
body and soul. Human good is the aim and test of all. Sun- 
day is but a means. The end is perfected humanity. " Man 
exists as an end in himself," says Kant. " The true Shekinah 
is man," says Chrysostom. " The Son of Man is Lord of the 
Sabbath," and the rendering of humanity divine is the goal at 
which the new Sabbath aims. 

How to apply this standard Church and state must each be 
its own judge. How shall the Church remember the Lord's 
Day to keep it holy? What makes anything holy? The law? 
That is but the broken mould in which the image of holiness 
was cast. Sunday is more than an institution, it is a new 



86 KEEPING THE SABBATH. [First Quarter. 

creation. The Son of Man is Lord, — all that leads to him and 
furthers his humanity is law keeping ; all that leads away from 
him is law breaking. Not feeding the animal in the pit, but 
lifting humanity out of the pit sanctifies Sunday. Pleasure- 
hunting is frivolous and desecrating ; search for good works 
and bringing deliverance from trouble are sanctifying. " Is it 
lawful to do good, to save life ? " said Christ, and his accusing 
plotters were dumb. Sunday is dedicated to the worship of 
God and to the promotion of happiness and goodness in a lost 
humanity. The best interpreter of Sunday law is love. 

If the Church exists primarily for religion, the state stands for 
health and morals. Sunday legislation for a Christian common- 
wealth finds its standard not in Mosaic ritual but in Christian 
sentiment. A judaizing judiciary will still stone to death the 
wilful Sabbath breaker ; a practice which John Cotton actually 
proposes in his prospectus of laws for the Colony of Massa- 
chusetts. Legislation cannot rest on the ground of religious 
duty. That is Papacy, unendurable in a state whose divorce 
from Church is too complete ever to be annulled. We cannot 
ask the world to keep our Lord's Day in our way save in so far as 
it believes in our Lord. We cannot expect the Jew to accept 
our Sabbath until he accepts our Saviour. Yet, as the Church's 
gift of Sunday has proven, on moral and economical grounds, 
a vast boon to the state, the state owes the Church in return 
ample protection for freedom of worship. The state may 
regulate morals and protect the Church, though it cannot create 
or administer a religion. 

The Christian Sunday is a divine gift, coming with an apos- 
tolic benediction. If it be made a yoke and a burden, it 
ceases to be Christian. It knows no such intolerable rules as 
stoning to death for lighting a fire, punishment for gathering 
sticks, climbing a tree, or killing a flea on condition that it 
doesn't actually hurt. Let these Sabbatarian virtues be re- 
manded to the scholastics and Puritans, The humorous sug- 



Lesson X.] KEEPING THE SABBATH. 87 

gestion that the Puritans hated bear-baiting not for the pain it 
gave the bear but for the pleasure it gave the spectators, would 
seem not unfitting if applied to the advocates of Sunday blue- 
laws. Do we wish back the spirit under which Washington 
was arrested and detained in Connecticut for Sunday travel ? 
Would it make Sunday the day of resurrection joy? Take 
joy from the children, giving them a catalogue of "don'ts," 
and they will hate the Sunday with all that pertains to it. 
Plants must grow and lungs dilate on Sunday. It is easy for 
those who can come and go at their leisure all the week, to 
condemn shop-worn and kitchen-stained drudges for getting a 
breath of pure air at the only possible time. Let us in reason- 
able charity remember that for every man and woman the 
highest attainable welfare of the whole being is an imperative 
law. The individual or corporation that helps make Sunday to 
the poor and sick in hovel and garret, the healthiest and hap- 
piest day in the whole week, is, if its motive is right, honoring 
the Lord's Day as truly as the preacher in the pulpit or the 
fashionable worshiper in a cushioned pew. 

But the ideal Sunday is certainly no day of sports or revel- 
ling. Holiday dissipation is wholly foreign to its spirit. There 
is no more fertile source of Sunday desecration than the craze 
for artificial pleasures which possesses this generation. Not 
one of the rich and varied delights which Nature directly 
affords, as walking, riding, botanizing, sketching, music, etc., 
but may be as innocent and helpful on this day as at any 
time; while few, if any, of the so-called social amusements or 
national games can be considered germane to the character of 
the Lord's Day. Encroachments on Sunday time by gamblers, 
theatre and base-ball players, saloon-goers and revelling parties, 
make discrimination a necessity. But let us discriminate 
rationally and justly. 

Then we have to remember the principle of christian liberty. 
" One observeth the day, — another observeth it not, but both to 



88 KEEPING THE SABBATH. [First Quarter. 

the Lord." That is, two men equally good and equally obedi- 
ent to Christ's law, may keep Sunday quite differently in detail, 
in which case, if both are conscientious, neither is justified in 
condemning the other. Only the keeping must be to the Lord, 
else your liberty is sheer license. Let us, in our reaction from 
Puritanism, not sing too lustily, " Free from the law, O, happy 
condition." Within the limits of spiritual law alone is there 
true liberty. Freedom of holy days was an apostolic principle. 
The early Christians did not censure or punish either non- 
observers or downright breakers of the Lord's Day. They 
simply loved the day into respect. The same love for Christ 
and men which they showed, and their courtesy for all, will 
enable us to re-establish what they established. 

In conclusion, then, let not Christians abuse their liberty in 
relation to Sunday. If a given use of the day by me, legiti- 
mate in itself, leads unbelievers to disregard it utterly, I will use 
it otherwise. Not to do this were to degrade my liberty, of 
which Scripture makes so much, into a laxity altogether unscrip- 
tural. The day demands, in such cases, a spirit of voluntary 
sacrifice that shall be to the world unquestionable evidence of 
the value we put on the Lord's Day, 

A slaye comes fleeing in the darkness of midnight to a 
western home, appealing for a night's protection from pursuing 
blood-hounds. " The town is full of friends," said the father of 
the narrator. " I don't need friends," was the reply, f 'I need 
a defender." "You shall have it," said the old man, and 
loaded his gun. 

No doubt the Lord can defend his day from all profaners, 
but he will do it through the loyal fidelity of his followers. In 
his name, let Book and bells summon us to keep the Holy Day 
of the Lord inviolate, as the Type of Creation's Rest, the 
Memorial of Redemptive Grace and the Pledge of Human 
Blessedness in the eternal Sabbath of God. 



lessor; /I. f(\are\) 12, 



ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. 

Esther iv: 10-17; v: I ~5- 

By Rev. F. W. RYDER, Lawrence, Mass. 

AMONG the Scriptures of the Old Testament the Book of 
Esther stands alone. Almost every feature of it that can 
be named is unique. Isolated iu locality, peculiar in 
style and matter, it presents to the Bible scholar a study at once 
difficult and enticing. It is well even for the general reader to 
get a view of the essential characteristics peculiar to this volume. 
The old idea of the Bible, which attributed to its varied litera- 
ture an identical quality, as though it had all been made on the 
same machine or handed down from heaven like the Two 
Tables of the Law, is rapidly and rightly passing away. We 
see that many elements and influences blended in the making 
of these books. Time and place, national and personal feeling, 
each writer's political and religious environment, the particular 
end which each author had in view and the special impulse 
that set his pen in motion, all are concerned and are therefore 
to be fully and devoutly investigated. This we see without 
abating one jot of our faith that these volumes took shape 
under the superintendence of God's Spirit. 

Esther is the distinctively Persian book of the Bible. The 
glow of the far Orient is on every page. In it we tarry for a sea- 
son by the home of the Magi. Says Stanley, " Even more than 
the Book of Job is Idumean and the Book of Daniel Babylon- 



90 ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. [First Quarter. 

ian, is the Book of Esther Persian. It is the one example in 
the sacred volume of a story of which the whole scenery and 
imagery breathes the atmosphere of an Oriental court as com- 
pletely and almost as exclusively as the Arabian nights." It is 
plain that the book marks an episode rather than an epoch. 
It makes no attempt at a continuous account of the Persian 
period in Hebrew history. We have merely the narrative of 
one exciting event. This short story, it should be noted, con- 
tains all that we know of the vicissitudes of the chosen people 
for a whole generation. The book presents an entirely new set 
of dramatis persona on a new stage. Throughout the entire 
narrative there is no mention of any person who had been 
prominent in national affairs previous to the reign of Ahasuerus, 
or of any who appear later. Nor is there any effort to connect 
the events recounted here with what has been or is to be. The 
book is, in fact, a bayou alongside the stream of sacred history, 
from which we may look out thereupon, but no part of the 
stream itself. Yet, far the most difficult and exceptional fea- 
ture of the volume is its total lack of religious quality. The 
failure of the book's unknown author to mention the name of 
God has often been severely commented upon. That omission 
was nearly fatal to its standing in the canon of Scripture. But 
this almost unaccountable fact is not the book's most serious 
fault. The story is wholly lacking in the pious flavor that char- 
acterizes the other parts of the Bible. From beginning to end 
there is no mention of any religious act, unless fasting is so to 
be considered, nor does any sign of devoutness, or dependence 
on supernatural aid emerge anywhere in the narrative. The 
lovely idyl of Ruth, which is likewise an historical "aside," is 
fragrant with a piety and faith that is entirely missing in Esther. 
The narrative moves on the level of ordinary history. Plot 
and counterplot, patriotism, courage and self-sacrifice, with 
happy fortuities which are not referred to divine Providence, 
tell the unvarnished tale. Yet this strange suppression of 



Lesson XI.] ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. 9 1 

religious feeling in the book is a cogent argument in favor of 
its historic character. Had the author's purpose been, as many 
think, to justify a spurious festival by a fictitious account of its 
origin, it is inconceivable that he should have left out the most 
forceful plea which he could possibly have made. He must 
have been writing the history of actual events. 

THE SITUATION. 

Jerusalem had fallen. The Hebrew tribes, torn from the soil 
in which they had rooted for six hundred years, and deported 
to a foreign territory, dragged out a servile existence as 
strangers in a strange land. But Babylon had fallen also. The 
huge fabric of Nebuchadnezzar's empire was crushed to ruins 
in a single night. Now, over the vast territories once ruled by 
the conquerer of Judah, the Medo-Persian was sovereign. One 
hundred and twenty provinces, from India to Ethiopia, com- 
posed this magnificent realm. What effect the conquering of 
their conquerors had on the fortunes of the captive nation we 
do not know. Probably little or none. The Hebrews seem 
to have lived on in peaceful subjugation, slowly rising in the 
esteem of their neighbors and spreading through the Persian 
domain, till the farthest of Persia's six score provinces had its 
Jewish colony. On the throne sat Ahasuerus, that Xerxes of 
Greek history whose army of a million shields met its first 
check at the glorious pass of Thermopylae, and fought in 
galleys under the cliffs of " seaborn Salamis." This prince 
displays all the usual traits of an oriental despot. Vain, volup- 
tuous, capricious, cruel, yet mingling with these qualities an 
unhesitating courage, great administrative skill, and military 
genius of no mean order, he stands a representative monarch 
of his race and time. 

A curious providence had elevated to his side a young 
Jewess, Hadassah by name, the cousin and foster-child of one 



92 ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. [First Quarter. 

Mordecai. Toward the close of a prolonged festival, the king, 
excited by wine, had commanded Vashti, his queen, to unveil 
her beauty before the festal throng. This was a flagrant viola- 
tion of immemorial etiquette, as shocking to Asiatic modesty 
as an order to the president's wife to disrobe at a state reception 
would seem now. Vashti refused and was promptly divorced. 
To the oriental mind one thing is worse in a wife than immod- 
esty, and that is disobedience. Her successor was chosen by 
competitive examination among the beauties of the realm. 
The choice fell on Hadassah, who is better known by her Per- 
sian name, Esther, " the star." About the same time Mordecai 
appears to have been promoted, presumably by Esther's in- 
fluence, to the rank of court chamberlain. It so came to pass 
that in the hour of its deadliest jeopardy, the Jewish nation had 
two noble representatives in positions of power near the person 
of the king. Such things do not fall out by chance. " In time 
of peace prepare for war," is a principle of God's providence 
not less than of man's sagacity. When storm and peril are far 
from popular thought, he is quietly putting his servants where 
they will be needed. The man or the woman for the emergency 
is forthcoming, because God, who foresees the emergency, 
makes ready for it. Many a strange conjunction of history is 
to be explained by this divine provision. 

" Behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God, within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above his own. ' ' 

Christianity had its Paul, Protestantism its Luther, English 
freedom its Cromwell, American liberty its Washington, each in 
the very hour when he was indispensable. 

CRISIS AND DELIVERANCE. 

A malignant plot, begotten of a petty quarrel between two 
courtiers, an Agagite and a Jew, menaced the Jewish race with 



Wesson XI.l ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. 93 

annihilation. The nature of the feud we only conjecture. Also 
we cannot explain Mordecai's rashness in defying the king's 
command. His course could have but one termination. Sooner 
or later, it must work his destruction. One point, however, 
over which difficulty is raised, is perfectly clear. Haman failed 
to wreak summary vengeance on his adversary, because he 
meditated a more magnificent stroke. Bulging with injured 
vanity, he planned a revenge proportionate to his own importance. 
The scheme was nothing less than the wholesale slaughter of 
the race to which Mordecai belonged. Haman scorned a 
small reprisal. He would wipe out the insult in a nation's 
blood. What mighty matters turn on trivial circumstances ! 
Desolating wars spring from questions of court etiquette. 
National history is the equilibrium of diplomatic intrigue. The 
payment of old grudges is still one paramount function of the 
statesman. 

The plot was well laid and almost succeeded. By a specious 
plea, a decree from the king was obtained. The edict of doom 
had gone forth, and the day of slaughter was fixed. Conster- 
nation spread through the realm. Between the captive people 
and their doom stood one frail life. The fate of a race and the 
religious future of the world hung on the patriotic daring of a 
young and untried woman. Would she be equal to the occa- 
sion? Mordecai, as he now saw the consequence of his 
temerity, saw also the single hope that remained. Some one 
must entreat from the king the life of the nation. Who so 
likely to gain that favor as the beloved queen, chosen for her 
goodness and beauty from among the daughters of the land? 
Yet what a slender chance ! Every approach to the monarch 
was barred by armed guards, whose duty was to smite without 
warning or mercy the unbidden intruder. The king had not 
summoned Esther for thirty days and might not do so for twice 
thirty more. Even her connection with the doomed people 
appears to have remained unsuspected. Moreover, the laws of 



94 ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. [First Quarter. 

the Medes and Persians change not. An edict once issued 
must stand forever. The king himself could not annul it. A 
dubious prospect indeed on which to risk one's life ! Yet it 
was the only hope. Sometimes God opens a door for us, and 
sometimes he leaves us to force it open. It was the supreme 
hour in Esther's history. The tide that leads to fortune was at 
its flood. A nation's fate trembled in the balance of her fortitude. 
Perhaps she had come to the kingdom for such a time as this. 
The sterner stuff of which men are made had often quailed and 
failed in easier passes. Was this tender woman sufficient for a 
venture so deadly? On her decision her people's future hung. 
But Mordecai's confidence was rightly placed. Esther rose 
grandly to the occasion. Dressing herself in festal robes, 
whether for enthronement or burial, who could tell ? she made 
her way into the royal presence. 

There is in all history no more thrilling scene. A queen, 
young, beautiful, famous, with life before her and everything to 
live for, staked all on a single throw to save her people from 
destruction. By her patriotism, her high daring, her noble 
self-abnegation, Esther deserves a place second to none in the 
annals of human heroism. 

Evidently the guards recognized her. For one dreadful 
moment they hesitated to strike. Small wonder if she felt the 
blood curdling about her heart \ if her sight grew dim, and the 
solid earth under her feet seemed to quake. But the vision of 
her beauty awoke the old love in the king's heart. While she 
stood and the sentries delayed, Ahasuerus stretched a gracious 
scepter toward her — and the cause was won. 

A few swift touches complete the story. The exposure and 
overthrow of Haman, the proclamation of the second decree, 
neutralizing what it could not revoke, the gallant stand of the 
Jews against their assailants, the execution of Haman on the very 
gallows he had built for Mordecai, are told with graphic power in 
the book itself. They call for neither recital nor comment here. 



Lesson XI.] ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. 95 

Out of this exciting episode arose the great Feast of Purim. 
It commemorated the nation's deliverance in Babylonia, as the 
Passover marked the deliverance from Egypt. The name is 
derived from the Persian word, Pur, " a lot," because when 
Hainan cast lots to determine the day of slaughter, the date 
fell so far off as to give ample space for redemptive effort. 

Philologists make some difficulty over the word, and critics 
pick flaws in the texture of the narrative. But as to the place 
and importance of Purim in the post- exilic history of Israel, 
there is no debate. National institutions, however, do not 
arise from romances. The Feast of Purim must have had an 
origin. For two thousand years it has stood before the world, 
unaccounted for in any other way. It is therefore an eloquent 
witness to the veracity of this account. It proclaims the Book 
of Esther a real record of a terrible crisis and an heroic 
rescue. 



REFLECTIONS. 

What are the lessons of the story? First, we have here a 
striking illustration of God's way of working out great plans 
through the ordinary affairs of men. No miracle is mentioned 
in this book. No angels walk in fiery furnaces or stop the 
mouths of lions. No dreadful plagues afflict a stubborn land. 
Seas do not divide or manna fall from heaven. No withering 
lightnings blast the oppressor, or rocking earthquakes unhinge 
prison doors. There is only the familiar movement along the 
familiar lines of human action. " But God's works are here 
though his name is not." Jehovah, who had a thousand times 
interposed by signs and wonders, did not desert his people 
now. The open eye beholds him here not less clearly than in 
the miraculous displays by which he is presented elsewhere. 
The fortune that lifted Esther to the throne, and seated Mor- 
decai at the king's gate, the headlong wrath of Haman and his 



g6 ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. [First Quarter 

inflated pride, the sleeplessness of Ahasuerus, the delay of 
the lot, and Esther's desperate venture, — these; with all the 
incidents of the drama, seem like the common run of history* 
So they are. But God usually publishes his revelation and his 
will through common history. Miracles are rare things. Divine 
Providence is constant and unfailing. God works more largely 
and not less visibly in the daily life of the world than in those 
startling exhibitions by which his power makes itself known at 
long intervals. The thing to be expected is that he will con- 
tinue to do so. Through the machinations of politics, through 
the unrest and striving of noble souls, through social evolutions, 
national vicissitudes and ethical experiments he will lead our 
race to its grander future. All the mighty and irritating prob- 
lems of our day will be solved along these lines. We should 
work with God unto their solution. The Book of Esther has 
the special value over the other parts of the Bible, that it 
addresses us on the same level of divine Providence where, 
most likely, we must ever work with God. 

The career of Haman exemplifies another great principle of 
the divine government. Evil reacts on its perpetrator. Curses 
come home to roost. Into the pit dug for others the digger 
falls. He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he 
hath done, and there is no respect of persons with God. 
Haman plotted the slaughter of a nation and brought destruc- 
tion on his own house. He built a gallows for Mordecai and 
himself hung thereon. By wrong-doing no one is so severely 
injured as the wrong-doer. The victim deserves less commiser- 
ation than the oppressor, on whom the rebounding retribution 
of crime surely falls. Men do not comprehend this law 
though the pages of history teem with illustrations of its opera- 
tion. The story of Esther should impress its inviolability on 
our minds. 

Decision and self-sacrifice are the strong elements of Esther's 
character. Not beauty, rank, or fame, but the prompt willing- 



Lesson XI.] ESTHER BEFORE THE KING. 97 

ness with which she risked all for the saving of others is the 
sure basis of her renown. To step unhesitatingly into the place 
of dangerous duty betokens a nature of heroic mold. No 
warrant to fame is surer. Mr. Ruskin, in an essay on " The 
Roots of Honor," discusses at some length the question why it 
is that regiments of men organized for peaceful industry get 
less praise than regiments of men organized for violence and 
slaughter. As to the fact there can be no doubt. The military 
hero is still the hero. The commercial world rears few monu- 
ments to its captains of industry or its merchant princes. The 
reason, according to Mr. Ruskin, is that the soldier's trade is 
not slaying but being slain ! "All kinds of bye-motives may 
have determined his choice of a profession and may affect his 
conduct in it. But put him in the fortress breach with all the 
pleasures of life behind him and only duty and death before, 
and he will keep his face to the front and die for the nation." 
It is this element of sacrifice in the soldier's career that gives 
him universal fame. We who look admiringly on Esther's 
heroic action should not miss its central lesson. Nor should 
we think that opportunity is lacking us in these piping times 
of peace. To stand with righteousness on the unpopular side, 
to speak out against shams, conventionalities, demagoguism, 
debauchery, formalism, bigotry, or any sort of wrong or hypoc- 
risy, will tax the stamina of the bravest. The path of self-denial 
and sacrifice seems drear and dusty as we look adown it. It 
is, nevertheless, the road by which all must walk who would 
gome at last to a renown that fadeth not away. 

7 



Iessoi? /I!. /T\arel? 19. 

[Temperance Lesson.] 



TIMELY ADMONITION. 

Proverbs xxiii: 15-23. 

By Rev. GEORGE E. HORR, Jr., Boston, Mass. 

THE Scriptures do not follow the method, which is some- 
what prevalent in our public school temperance instruction, 
of minimizing the attractions of strong drink. On the 
contrary, the Bible writers portray the delights of the cup in the 
very language which a profligate man might use. Their descrip- 
tions, however, are not to make wine attractive, but to show 
that, in spite of its allurements, there is peril in it. Take, for 
instance, the language of the last part of this twenty-third 
chapter of the book of Proverbs. The writer speaks of wine 
as "red," as "giving its color in the cup," as " moving itself 
aright," or "going down smoothly." He dwells upon the 
tempting qualities of strong drink, yet, he does this, not to win 
us to the cup, but to enforce the truth that the pleasant invita- 
tion is really an insidious temptation. " Its end — like a serpent 
it bites, like a basilisk it stings." The child who is taught that 
wine is not pleasant to drink, when he comes to taste it, will be 
apt to conclude that all his temperance instruction was untrust- 
worthy, and the well-meaning but narrow-minded teachers and 
writers from whom he learned, will find that they have indirectly 
helped to form the habits they sought to prevent. Nothing is 
so wise as to follow the method of the Scriptures and teach the 
whole truth, without covering up or twisting the slightest cir- 



Lesson XII.] TIMELY ADMONITION. 99 

cumstance for the sake of making a point. Let us frankly 
acknowledge that it is a pleasant thing to drink wine, that the 
attractions of the cup are very considerable, and then like 
reasonable men let us see why it is that, in spite of its tempting 
qualities, wine is an indulgence to be foregone, so that the 
more atttractive it is to us the more we should be on our guard 
against its fascinations. Everyone must see how greatly the 
exhortations to temperance in the passage before us are 
strengthened, because the writer is so open-minded in consider- 
ing the facts, and so candid in his admissions as to the attrac- 
tions of the cup. We feel that it is not a fanatic, seeing but 
one thing and without any sense of proportion, who is dealing 
with us, but a broad-minded man who has considered all the 
facts, and who, in view of them all, gives to us this urgent advice 
against indulgence in wine. 

The writer supports his exhortation to temperance by three 
considerations, which have as much weight to-day as they had 
in that distant age in Palestine. 

I. INDULGENCE IN WINE LEADS TO POVERTY. 

" The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and 
drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." There are facts in 
abundance to verify this strong statement. The organization 
of charitable work has done much to throw light upon the 
causes of poverty and of failure to succeed in life. The visitors 
of the Associated Charities, in Boston, have learned that one 
of the first inquiries to be made, when a family is found upon 
the borders of destitution, is in regard to the habits of the 
bread-winner as to strong drink. It is doubtless true that 
intemperance is an effect of poverty as well as a cause of it. 
But when one engaged in philanthropic work meets day after 
day those who might be earning a respectable livelihood were it 
not for drink, and who lose the employment furnished for them 
because of their intemperance, he comes to believe that while 



IOO TIMELY ADMONITION. [First Quarter. 

men often fly to drink because of poverty, yet in the majority 
of cases, intemperance is the direct cause of their failure to 
earn a decent living. 

In our American life, the competition in gainful callings is 
rapidly increasing. It is not quite so easy as it once was for a 
young man to secure a foothold in industrial, commercial or 
professional life. Whatever we may think about the abstract 
right or wrong of indulgence in mild stimulants, the fact remains 
that a young man who wishes to rise in the world, seriously 
discounts his own chances by acquiring the drink habit. Other 
things being equal, it is the abstinent man who keeps his place 
in times of commercial depression j it is the abstinent man to 
whom promotion comes. The position of trust and the larger 
salary belong to him. The merchant who drinks is apt to 
lower his commercial rating ; the lawyer who drinks alienates 
his clients ; the physician who drinks loses patients. It is the 
duty of every man to get on in the world, to rise, by all honor- 
able means, to a high place in his calling, to be a successful 
man among men. But whoever, to-day, would make the most 
of his powers and opportunities, must run the race with no 
unnecessary weights. In the competitions of life a glass of 
wine may keep the doors of opportunity double-bolted ; an 
occasional glass of beer may be the clog which prevents one 
from reaching the highest success. The young man who affects 
to despise the confidence of others, or the clear head and 
the ready command of every faculty that are associated with 
abstinence, jeopardizes his own future. The economic con- 
sideration for temperance may not be the highest in the scale 
of motives, but it is high enough for the Scriptures to enforce, 
and high enough to lead every self-respecting man to the 
practice of the virtue. 

II. INDULGENCE IN STRONG DRINK DISHONORS THE FAMILY. 

" Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not 



tESSON XII.] TIMELY ADMONtTtON. iOl 

thy mother when she is old/' Filial obligations do not cease 
when the child has reached his majority and age has stricken 
his parents. Regard for parental wishes and feelings, for the 
home traditions and standards, still binds the dutiful son. He 
realizes that his parents suffer not less but more from his mis- 
deeds as a man than from his waywardness as a child. 

We see the operation of this motive of filial regard when a 
young man of christian training is thrown into temptation. In 
spite of himself he thinks : How would my father and mother 
regard this thing? How would they feel were I to do it? 
Perhaps the temptation appeals to him very strongly, perhaps 
he does not for himself feel that he would take great harm 
from yielding to it, but the thought of the pain it would give to 
his father and his mother enables him to resist it. He realizes 
that the most cruel blows are not necessarily physical. They 
are against the sentiments and moral standards of those whose 
lives are bound up in ours. If there is any temptation about 
which wise parents are anxious, it is the fascination of strong 
drink. They know the peril of it. And even if the son does 
not see the evil of it himself, it is a cruel and dishonorable 
thing to affront the love of those whose lives and interests are 
all involved in his conduct. 

But still further, in the Scriptures the family is regarded as a 
unit, and its honor is in the keeping of every member of it. 
"■ Honor thy father and thy mother " means more than that 
children while in the home should obey their parents ; it 
implies that the family's honor should be sustained by every 
member of it. The misdeeds of one member of the family 
inflict an injury upon the whole household. A son deems it a 
curse if his father has committed a crime ; he is right in think- 
ing that his family name is stained, and that a father can leave 
his children no better legacy than that of a good name ; but a 
child's evil deed stains the family honor in a like way. It is 
one of the best signs of our times that there is an increasing 



idi TlMELY ADMONITION. [First Quarter. 

disposition in this country to regard family honor as something 
to be greatly prized. It is a sentiment which is allied to some 
of the noblest promptings of our nature, and may serve as an 
invaluable support and incentive to virtue. One who enters 
into this deeper meaning of the fifth commandment will be 
slow to put himself under the dominion of a master who may 
blast his name with indelible disgrace. No man with his eyes 
open can fail to see that strong drink is doing as much as any- 
thing to drag down noble names and tarnish the lustre of 
honorable parentage. 

III. INDULGENCE IN STRONG DRINK ROBS LIFE OF ITS 
HIGHEST WORTH. 

" Buy the truth and sell it not ; also wisdom and instruction 
and understanding." Life means opportunity to exchange 
lower values into higher. In one of our Lord's parables he 
represents a steward as turning the opportunities of his position 
into friendship. The story typifies the use to be made of life. 
With our days, energies, and opportunities we may buy the 
lowest or the highest things. In one sense it is not true that 
we carry nothing out of the world. We carry out of the world 
all we ever had in it, transmuted into nobility or degradation 
of the spirit. The supreme test to be applied to any habit or 
course of conduct is its relation to our power of turning the 
things of the earth into " the true riches." It is by this test 
that indulgence in strong drink is decisively condemned. The 
best medical authorities, and those not committed to any total 
abstinence theories, unite in saying that one of the principal 
psychological effects of alcohol is to loosen the delicate and 
firm grasp of the will upon the passions. It gives a slack rein to 
the lower nature. It is only through holding the forces of the 
lower nature in absolute subordination to reason and conscience 
that it is possible to turn life into truth, into pure affection for 
the excellent, into the service of man and the worship of God. 
The control of the lower nature by spiritual forces in most of 



tESSON XII.] TIMELY ADMONITION. I03 

us is too fitful and unsteady ; we do not sit on the throne of 
our own souls, masters of ourselves, and any indulgence of any 
kind that gives the forces of the lower life a freer rein assails 
the mastery through which alone there is the possibility of 
transmuting earthly life into the values of eternity. There is 
no more certain way to lead one to part with his divine 
heritage more cheaply than Esau sold his birthright, than to 
weaken the spiritual restraints upon the lower nature through 
strong drink. 

The root of intemperance is the love of pleasure. All these 
considerations upon which we have dwelt are verified in the 
larger truth that life has another end than the satisfaction of 
the body. We have duties to ourselves, duties to others, 
duties to God. Wine is pleasant. No one acknowledges that 
more frankly than the author of this book of Proverbs. Its 
fascinations appealed to him as they do to us. But there are 
other things in life of more worth than sensual gratification. 
An honorable career as a man among men is worth more. 
A filial disposition and an honorable family name are worth 
more. And above all, the power to use life so that its energies 
and opportunities may be transmuted into the solid substance 
of character, into " truth in the inward parts," into pure affec- 
tions, into personal conformity with the law of righteousness, 
is worth immeasurably more than the tickling of the palate or 
the exhilaration of the brain. 

But we must not forget that temperance is not everything. 
A man may be temperate and be unkind, malicious or pharisaical. 
The temperance of the gospel is one of the nine "fruits of the 
spirit." The vital force that blossoms in the glorious cluster of 
the Christian virtues — personal faith in Jesus — is the source of 
a self-controlled, temperate life. This faith co-ordinates all the 
forces of the soul to the service of Christ, and overcomes the 
love of pleasure by the constraining love of a Divine Saviour 
and Master. 



piteri^atii/e lessen? ^11. ffiarel? 19. 

[Missionary Lesson.] 



THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. 

Isaiah xliv : 9-20. 

By Rev. W. S. AYERS, Portland, Me. 

THIS lesson takes us back a little, back to the days of 
Israel's thraldom. The prophet sees the people of God 
either discouraged under their long captivity, or else 
satisfied with their foreign home. He endeavors to awaken 
both classes with a view of the greatness of the God whom 
they serve, and of the mission to which they are summoned. 
Not only are they called to preserve among themselves the 
knowledge of a living God, but they have a world-wide mission 
to the Gentiles, consisting in the extension of this knowledge. 
To arouse them to the importance of that mission, to keep 
them from satisfaction with heathenism, to encourage them 
to prepare themselves for their sovereign work of rebuilding 
and universalizing the theocracy, the prophet presents before 
them this picture of the vanity of idolatry in contrast with the 
glory of Jehovah. The contrast extends over several chapters, 
growing sterner and more vivid as it advances, till here it 
reaches its climax. God is, and there is none beside. Idol- 
atry is not only sinful, but infinitely absurd. 

The words are addressed not to the heathen to show them 
the unreason of their worship, but to God's own people to 
awaken them from unfaith and lethargy. The prophet's purpose 



Lesson XIl.] THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. IO5 

is to quicken the confidence of his people in Jehovah by- 
showing the imbecility of looking to idols. A great catas- 
trophe is overhanging the nations. Cyrus is sweeping all 
before him, and guardian deities long trusted are proving 
powerless. Yet Israel need fear nothing. Jehovah has fore- 
told all this though idol gods could not do so. Nay, the 
approaching overturn of the world is to be Israel's new birth 
of glory. These words, displaying the absurdity of idolatry, 
are only part of the argument by which the prophet would 
inspire the people to look to God for deliverance. The entire 
chapter is involved. It is a lesson in God's method of training 
the nation that is peculiarly to bear and manifest his name. 

God's people must be prepared for their divine mission to 
the world by being deeply convinced of his reality as the only 
living and true God, and of the superiority of a religion based 
upon such monotheistic faith. While they stood in fear of 
gods many and lords many, and seriously compared them with 
Jehovah, it was impossible for them to be "a light to the 
Gentiles." As we only appreciate the darkness by its contrast 
with the light, so men could never feel the fatuity of heathen- 
ism, save as they realized the verity and the unity of God. 

Substituting homely prose for glowing poetry we may, after 
a fashion, reduce the prophet's thought to propositions like the 
following : 

I. Neither the idol nor its god knows anything, while Jeho- 
vah knows all. 
II. Neither the idol nor its god can do aught, while Jeho- 
vah is almighty. 

III. Neither the idol nor its god is aught, while Jehovah is 

the living God, God of the entire universe, and a 
God of love, in a word, the perfect Personality. 

IV. The worship of idols or their gods is degrading, while 

that of Jehovah exalts and saves the soul. 



Io6 THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. [First Quarter. 

I. The prophet holds up the good-for-nothing idol over 
against his vision of Jehovah, that we may the better realize the 
glory of God's omniscence. In his opening sentence he shows 
the folly of trusting the heathen gods for deliverance, because 
they are senseless. They see not nor know. Those who 
trust them are like them. They know not, they consider not. 
Their eyes are shut that they cannot see, and their hearts that 
they cannot understand. Their deceived hearts have turned 
them aside, so that none of them can deliver his soul, or say, 
Is there not a lie in my right hand? 

But Jehovah, God of Israel, is a living God. He is a Per- 
son, not only having knowledge, but truly universal in knowl- 
edge, bound to no date or time, seeing the end from the 
beginning. To the simple mind prediction of future events 
is the clearest proof of divine power. Only God can tell what 
is to happen to-morrow. The prophet therefore reminds 
Israel that God had of old foretold the captivity, and now fore- 
tells the victories of Cyrus and Israel's own triumphant return 
to Zion. Who shall hesitate to trust a being like this ! Though 
far from Zion they are safe. One is their Guide, whom their 
craftiest foe cannot baffle, to whom no event is dark. 

II. In the same way the prophet pictures the vanity of idols 
to make more real the power of God. This magnifying of 
Jehovah is, as we have seen, the marrow of the whole discourse. 

The weakness of these gods and the absurdity of trusting 
them have their fit analogue in the fact that the idols are the 
mere creations of men, weak men, whose strength is consumed 
with hunger, and who faint with thirst. Whereas the everlast- 
ing God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
not, neither is weary. He giveth power to the faint, and to 
him that hath no might he increases strength. So that they 
who wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength ; they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be 
weary ; they shall walk and not faint. All kingdoms and all 



Lr:;soN Xlt] THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES* 10? 

kings are in his hand. He says to Babylon, Come down and 
sit in the dust, sit on the ground without a throne. Cyrus the 
Great is his anointed, through whom he subdues nations, 
looses the loins of kings, breaks in pieces doors of brass and 
bars of iron, all for Jacob his servant's sake. 

"Thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer, I am Jehovah, that 
maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that 
spreadeth abroad the earth. Who is with me? that frustrateth 
the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad ; that turneth 
wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish ; that 
saith of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited ; and of the cities 
of Judah, They shalt be built and I will raise up the waste 
places thereof; that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry 
up thy rivers ; that calleth Cyrus, My Shepherd who shall per- 
form all my pleasure ; even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be 
built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." 

Who can measure the power of such preaching as this in 
stimulating God's people to great deeds? It nerved captive 
Israel to rend his chains and return to Zion. It was soul and 
fire to the Maccabees. It kept faith alive in the dark period 
just before Jesus came. It has heartened for his task every 
great reformer and revivalist in the history of the Church. 
God's sovereignty : God's almightiness, — we need more faith 
in it now. The timidity we sometimes feel in facing the almost 
unlimited work committed to the Church, the fear, for instance, 
that we are wasting our forces on such an immense empire as 
China, arises from the fact that we do not fully believe Christ 
when he says : "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth." No faint-hearted missionary ever reaped a harvest 
for God. No half faith in God's power can kindle in our 
churches zeal to execute the great commission. How long 
before a truer faith in the almighty shall inspire us to undertake 
afresh at his command that task which unbelievers will forever 
count hopeless, the conversion of the world ! Let us not be 



toS The Vanity of graven images. [First quarter; 

discouraged by the years we have waited. God moves slowly 
now, for his people do. Let them duly believe in him and he 
shall cut the work short in righteousness and nations shall be 
born in a day. 

III. The idol, or its god, is nothing, but Jehovah is all and 
in all, the one and only God of the universe, personal and 
benign. Thus saith Jehovah the king of Israel : "I am the 
first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God." 

The Jews were fitted by their captivity for a larger mission. 
Their view of God was widened and spiritualized. Earlier 
they had thought of Jehovah in a half heathenish way as con- 
fined to a particular temple, a special land and a peculiar 
people. Some of them feared that in captivity they were 
beyond his care. Separated from their temple and from all 
else that had before forced upon their religion a local character, 
at the same time filled with a sense of the reality of their 
religion which no vicissitudes could shake, they opened their 
minds to the truth that " God is Spirit," and gradually acquired 
the ability to worship him "in spirit and in truth." This was 
the discipline by which it pleased God to evolve a pure mono- 
theism in the earth. Even his chosen people had never, as a 
whole, risen to a truly spiritual view of him before. Usually 
they had called upon him as "Jehovah, God of Israel," with 
hardly a broader thought than that of their heathen neighbors 
who invoked "Baal-zebub, god of Ekron." Now, they simply 
believe in God. He is indeed still " God of Israel" but he is 
Lord of all being besides. 

Inseparable from God's universality or metaphysical perfec- 
tion, so to speak, is, in the prophet's thought, his love, or moral 
perfection. This is the strongest point of contrast between 
Jehovah and all heathen deities. The forgiving love of God, 
blotting out the trangressions which brought his people into 
exile, this moral trait of the supreme being, which was Israel's 
hope, was precisely the one most foreign to the thought of 



Lesson XII.] THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. IO9 

idolaters. Heathen have sufficiently vivid conceptions of the 
awful wrath of their offended gods, and strive in every way to 
appease that wrath. Of love in the world's Ruler they know 
nothing. Their thought is that sin must work out its penalty, 
grind and crush as it may. Forgiveness, if they could think 
the thought at all, they would set down as proof of weakness. 
This central notion of Christianity is one which every heathen 
people has despised. No other element of heathen's ignorance 
is so sad as their ignorance of the love of God. To teach 
them to commit themselves, in all their desolation of heart, 
to his compassion,, to convert their fear into humble confidence, 
to lead them to cast aside every offering by which they would 
placate God's wrath, and expectantly to whisper each want into 
the ear of a Heavenly Father, to help them realize his tender 
individual care, — all this is our privilege. It should inspire us 
to any sacrifice. Yea, it will inspire us to all needed sacrifice 
provided we ourselves realize the blessedness of the divine 
love. 

IV. We turn from the contrast of deities, so to speak, to the 
contrast between the effects which their worship has on the 
worshippers. Over against the glorious future to come to 
Israel as possessing the true religion, we have a vivid picture of 
the degrading influence of idolatry. The knowledge of the 
degradation proceeding from heathen worship is intended to 
work as a powerful motive in the minds of God's people to 
appreciate and accomplish their mission. We have a right to 
judge a religion by the men it is capable of making. The 
curse of idolatry lies in this, that it not only robs a man of 
every high conception of his destiny, but degrades the present 
life. 

There are those who see so much beauty in heathen religions 
that they think it useless to carry the gospel abroad at such 
immense sacrifice. No doubt darkest heathen possess certain 
elements of valuable truth. Nowhere has God left himself 



IIO THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. [First Quarter. 

without a witness in men's bosoms. But he who would regard 
such faint glimpses of divine wisdom as worthy to be compared 
with Christianity, or even with the religion of the prophets, 
cannot himself have received more than isolated rays of light 
from the Sun of Righteousness. 

Heathen worship degrades the understanding, because, so 
long as minds are taken up with low, material conceptions, no 
very large expansion of them is possible. One of the first 
things heathen do when they begin to acquire enlightenment, a 
prime help in breaking away from the tyranny of idolatry, is to 
give their old theology a spiritual meaning. Having gone so 
far they almost uniformly renounce it entirely. 

Heathen worship is made so absurd in this picture which the 
prophet has painted us, that we wonder how any rational being 
could ever be held by it, and from that day to this, evidence 
has been multiplying to prove its inability really to satisfy the 
understanding. The intelligent Hindu protests that his idol is 
only a symbol of the supreme spirit to which he bows. Even 
the Chinese have a temple to the Most High in which is to be 
found no idol. The argument that idolatry is necessary for the 
ignorant is like the kindred argument against the wide distri- 
bution of the Word of God. The intellectual expansion 
necessary for the interpretation of that Word will come only 
with the effort to interpret it, and the high spiritual conception 
necessary to the worship of a spiritual God will come only 
when every material image is taken away and the mind forced 
to grasp God directly. So far as idolatry is concerned, the 
notion that heathen religions are a preparation for Christianity 
is absurd, if for no other reason than that it is a reversal of 
nature. The intellectual thraldom of idolatry is incompatible 
with that expansion of mind which is necessary in order to 
grasp the thought of God. The heathen need schools of the 
best type, but all educational and other civilizing agencies will 
prove disappointing if we depend on them alone. Idolaters 



Lesson XII.] THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. Ill 

must be delivered from the mental slavery which idolatry 
imposes before it will be possible for them to make any con- 
siderable progress even in secular things. This mental emanci- 
pation the gospel of Christ alone can affect. 

Idolatrous worship also degrades the moral sense. It is a 
fact which none can deny, that desperate vices characterize all 
heathen communities. Human life as such they little regard. 
They have but a feeble sense of human brotherhood. Bloodiest 
cruelties occur in them unheeded. It is only as men appre- 
hend the fatherhood of God that they recognize in other men 
their brothers, and begin sedulously to cultivate the truly 
human virtues. So long as a religion gives its devotee no 
thought of a life larger than the present, it will be found power- 
less to elevate for him his present life. 

Heathenism may boast some noble thoughts, but a system 
of idolatry capable of giving its constituency a high moral and 
spiritual sense, the world has not yet produced. The reason 
is that idolatry does not have in it the means for properly 
educating the conscience. We are the images of the deities 
we serve. A degraded religion necessitates a low idea of man. 
So long as the idolater is inspired by no ideal outside of him- 
self, the sinful tendency of his own bosom drags him and his 
god to a base level. There is, in such worship, not only no 
power of educating the conscience, but the souls of such 
worshippers lose their moral insight. The drift of every religion, 
till Christianity, has been downward. Their beginnings show 
traces of a worship truly devout, but their later developments 
are usually associated with loathsome vices. 

Instead of being changed by the best conceptions of their 
religion, heathen are wont to change their religions, making 
them vehicles for the grossest passions of human nature. The 
heathen deplorably need morality, but it is useless to teach them 
our moral code unless we can give them the inspiration which 
makes it practicable. So long as they worship their base gods 



112 THE VANITY OF GRAVEN IMAGES. [First Quarter. 

they cannot feel the beauty of such a code, or come into living 
sympathy with it. 

Never before or since has the world received such a moral 
code as that which Jesus gave, because no other teacher ever 
entertained or taught so rational or lofty a view of God as was 
that of Jesus. He plants morality on the right basis when he 
insists that if we truly love God the love of man must follow- 
We cannot injure man without offending his Maker, whose sa- 
cred image he bears. For this reason Christianity alone among 
religions has in it the power of properly educating the conscience. 
It gives every moral act a definite relation to God. It presents 
God as possessing every conceivable moral perfection. It bids 
us rise to these perfections. The nearer we come to God, the 
keener our perception of right and wrong. The nearer we come 
to the light, the more of our own blemishes and imperfections 
do we see. And because God is perfection, there can be no 
end to this educating process till we have reached the perfection 
of the Divine Being. How completely does Christianity satisfy 
the progressive nature of man, and how ignobly has every other 
religion failed in this ! Christianity is the final religion. It is 
in perfect wisdom as well as in perfect love that our Lord 
and Master commands : Go ye into all the World : disciple all 
the nations. 



THE SECOND QUARTER. 



OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS. 



Wesson 

I. April 2. "The Afflictions of Job."— Job ii: i-io. Rev. 
F. E. Dewhurst. 

I. " 2. "The Resurrection of Christ." — Matt, xxviii: 
i-io. Rev. Professor D. F. Estes. 

II. " 9. "Afflictions Sanctified."— Job v: 17-27. Rev. 
H. H. Peabody, D. D. 

III. " 16. "Job's Appeal to God."— Job xxiii: 1-10. Rev. 

G. E. Merrill. 

IV. " 23. "Job's Confession and Restoration." — Job xlii: 

1-10. Rev. Edward Judson, D. D. 

V. " 30. " Wisdom's Warning." — Prov. i: 20-33. Rev. 
Benjamin Greene. 

VI. May 7. "The Value of Wisdom." — Prov. iii: 11-24. 
Rev. Professor J. R. Sampey, D. D. 

VII. " 14. "Fruits of Wisdom." — Prov. xii: 1-15. Mr. 
H. C. Vedder. 

VIII. " 21. "Against Intemperance." — Prov. xxiii: 29-35. 
Rev. John Humpstone, D. D. 

IX. " 28. "The Excellent Woman."— Prov. xxxi: 10-31. 
REv. C. H. Watson. 

X. June 4. "Reverence and Fidelity," — Eccles. v: 1-12. 
Rev. E. P. Tuu,er. 

XI. " 11. "The Creator Remembered." — Eccles. xii: 1-7, 
13, 14. Rev. J. F. Elder, D. D. 

XII. " 18. "Messiah's Kingdom."— Mai. iii: 1-12. Rev. 
R. H. Pitt, D. D. 



(essoi} I. /Jpril 2. 



THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. 

Job ii: 1-10. 
By Rev. F. E. DEWHURST, Burlington, Vt. 



THE treasure-house of Hebrew literature contains no 
nobler product than the dramatic poem which unfolds 
the spiritual experience of Job. On literary grounds 
alone it ranks with the immortal works of the Greek dramatists 
and with the dialogues of Plato. Like all the great literature 
of the world it is dominated not by the esthetic purpose, but 
by a motive deeper than beauty. Life in its joys and sorrows, 
life in its mighty struggles, life beset with its problems and 
enigmas, life beating its way out into the knowledge and mastery 
of its conditions, has been the theme of the world's greatest seers 
and singers. Saga, epic and drama are the record of heroic 
deeds, of sublime achievements, of the love that "hopes and 
endures and is patient." They are interpretations of life, and 
we miss their meaning and message unless we come to them 
to find light upon our way. In addition to this the drama of 
Job has that distinct spiritual quality which has come to us from 
the Hebrew life. It has that serious earnestness, that freedom 
from merely speculative interest in its problem, that urgency 
toward some solution of life which shall satisfy not only the 
reason but the heart, that we are accustomed to find upon the 
Hebrew page ; and because it has these qualities it is of more 
thari Hebrew significance. It is truly " all men's book." 



Il8 THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. [Second Quarter. 

Let us briefly note the literary structure of this epic. The 
introduction, or prose prologue, gives a graphic account of Job 
dwelling in all the splendor of eastern prosperity ; describes 
him as an oriental millionaire, the owner of flocks, lands and 
children ; indicates him in one emphatic phrase as " the 
greatest of all the children of the East; " and relates also his 
conspicuous devotion to the religion of his people, a devotion 
scrupulous as well as conspicuous. After the merry-makings 
of his children he offers extra sacrifices, for he says : " It may 
be that my children have sinned and renounced God in their 
hearts." He is, in a word, the perfect man, the man therefore 
upon whom according to the current religious doctrine, the 
divine blessing must come in amplest measure. 

It is upon this man, prosperous, happy, faithful, righteous, 
that disasters fall, as Shakespeare says, "not singly but in 
battalions." One fateful day sweeps from him all his earthly 
possessions with his sons and daughters. Yet, though he is 
bent under the blast of the tempest, his faith does not succumb. 
" In all this Job sinned not nor charged God with foolishness." 
At last he himself is touched with the most loathsome form of 
leprosy, thought to be the uttermost curse of man, the sure 
sign of the wrath of the Almighty. 

The prologue closes by introducing the three friends of Job, 
who by appointment have come "to bemoan him and to comfort 
him." Then in poetic form ensues the action of the tragedy. 
There are three cycles of dialogue, in each of which the three 
friends speak and Job answers them in turn. Then Elihu, a 
younger man, who has waited for his elders to speak but who 
is out of patience with the inadequacy of their discourses, 
undertakes in wordy form to set forth the cause of God. Last 
of all, God speaks, first brushing aside his youthful advocate 
with a word. Then in majestic language he challenges Job, 
asserting the tokens of his presence and power, while Job 
listens in a silence that grows every moment more significant, 



Lesson I.] 



THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. 



II 9 



until, all teachable and humble once more and with a new light 
shining down upon him, he makes the answer which is at once 
the literary climax of the drama and the spiritual crisis within 
his soul : " I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but 
now mine eye seeth thee." 

Such is the frame and body of this wondrous piece. Let us 
see now what a throbbing heart beats within it. Let us see 
what truth of universal experience is working itself into 
expression in the dialogues between Job and the friends who 
come to comfort him. We must remember that a fundamental 
postulate of ancient religion made prosperity the direct result 
and reward of faithfulness to God. It was a radical conviction. 
The current religious evidences presupposed it and built upon 
it. The righteous man must be a prosperous man, and the 
prosperous man was known by that fact as a righteous man. 
But the day was sure to come when some one would see that 
this doctrine was an inadequate interpretation of the facts of 
life ; that the inference from the traditional belief was too 
sweeping and too terrible. The conviction must have begun 
to force its way into the minds of men before the book of Job 
was written, but in this book for the first time the new faith 
gets a clear and triumphant establishment. Naturally then the 
writer seizes upon a typical case ; upon a case which shall be 
fit to prove the inadequacy of the current belief. The problem 
thrust out for solution is that of a representative man in point 
both of prosperity and of religious fidelity. It is Job the most 
prosperous of the children of the East, Job over-scrupulous in 
his service of God, who sits there in the ashes, bereaved, 
smitten, afflicted, and from whom his friends turn their faces. 

Here then is thrust upon us in the person of Job a flat con- 
tradiction of the traditional theology. It is as difficult an 
instance as could be cited. It is the case of an afflicted, 
wretched man who seems to be also a righteous man. A few 
days before and no one could have been found to impugn his 



120 THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. [Second Quarter. 

goodness. Job himself would have been the first to say that 
there must be something wrong, some reason for pain and pun- 
ishment for any man who was found in the estate to which he 
now had come. See what a terrible strain therefore is put upon 
the reigning theology ! See what a dilemma that trio of friends 
is in ! It is little wonder that upon their friend with the mark 
of the divine scourge upon him they gaze for seven days in 
silent dismay before they dare speak. They must believe that 
this good man is no longer good or they must be disloyal to 
their faith. It is a struggle between friendship and orthodoxy ; 
but when at length Job breaks forth in his impetuous way they 
reach their decision and instantly become champions of the 
traditional idea. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, — they are the 
mouth-pieces of conventional religion, but in different ways. 
Eliphaz has seen visions and is in touch with the supernatural ; 
Bildad is the quoter of maxims and sayings of the fathers ; 
Zophar, ignorant bigot that he is, is the mere zealot of a formal 
orthodoxy and blurts out his angry protests at Job who can 
dare doubt or complain. 

After the first passionate protest of Job the three friends are 
aroused to a sense of their duty. They must not let this impious 
tendency go unrebuked. Eliphaz speaks guardedly and con- 
siderately ; Bildad less so, and when Zophar's turn comes his 
bigot nature is aroused to such a pitch of fury that he launches 
forth into denunciation ; " Should a man full of talk be justi- 
fied ? Oh, that God would speak and open his lips against thee J 
Know that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserv- 
eth." 

When these defenders of conventionalities have had their 
turn Job begins to face a new issue. He sadly realizes that 
these men have no light or comfort for him. Their threadbare 
common-places, their pious remarks yield no consolation to his 
troubled spirit. Is this all that you can say, he asks them. 
This is an old story. " Who knoweth not such things as these ?" 



Lesson I.] THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. . 121 

As Job realizes that his friends by the stress of their religious 
position must believe that he is undergoing punishment for his 
sins, he rises up in the splendid consciousness of his integrity and 
says : — I too will face this issue. If it comes to this then I 
abandon once for all the religion and the God of these men, 
for / know that I am innocent. I will take what comes from 
such an unjust God. I can hope for nothing good. "Though 
I be righteous mine own mouth shall condemn me. Though 
I be perfect it shall prove me perverse. / am perfect \ I re- 
gard not myself; I despise my life, yet it is all one ; therefore 
I say he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." Let us not 
miss the significance and the grandeur of this issue, for here is 
the tragic collision of mighty forces. It is a man pitting his 
integrity against the belief in God which is forced upon him by 
the traditional faith, daring to walk out into the darkness of 
doubt rather than give the lie to the integrity of which he is 
conscious. It is the array of the deep and primal instincts of 
the soul against the so-called revelations of God in objective 
ways. There is no moment in the whole drama more full of 
awful consequence than the moment when Job dares to take 
that attitude. There is no moment more full of consequence 
to human destiny anywhere than the moment when the sure 
instincts and intuitions of the soul come face to face with some 
dictum or doctrine hitherto regarded as the authoritative word 
of God. It is indeed a day of "judgment and of burning" 
when the ethical and spiritual insights of man confront the 
received traditions of religion and condemn them as untrue. 
But it is by that very fact a day of promise for religion, a day 
in which it shall begin to rise to higher flights. 

Here then was the crisis for Job. It flashed upon him that 
these friends of his were not only bringing no light and com- 
fort to him, not only deserting the place of friendship, but were 
actually saying what was not true in order to justify their 
religious assumptions and maintain their orthodoxy. " Hear 



122 THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. [Second Quarter. 

now my rebuke," he says, " and listen to the charges of my 
lips : Will ye speak what is wrong for God ? and will ye, for 
him, utter deceit?" From this moment the path of Job is 
determined for him. He has let go the last feeble hold upon 
the traditional faith. If he must make the choice between 
truth and God he will choose truth. He will give up God 
rather than love a lie. 

"Behold he may slay me ; I may not hope ; 
But my ways will I maintain to his face." 

Thus our hero has reached what Carlyle called " the Ever- 
lasting No," when he says : "My whole me stood up in native 
God-created majesty and with emphasis recorded its protest. 
The Everlasting no had said, Behold thou art fatherless, out- 
cast, and the universe is the devil's ; to which my whole me 
made answer, /am not thine but free and forever hate thee." 

How like these are the words which Job addresses to God ! 

"Is it beseeming to thee that thou shouldest oppress ; 
That thou shouldest despise the labor of thy hands, 
While thou shinest on the counsel of the wicked? " 

It is a long way from the everlasting no to the everlasting 
yea, and Job has that journey now to take. Out into the 
darkness of doubt and denial he goes. He has abandoned the 
only God he yet knows, because that God can be defended 
only by a lie. With bruised and bleeding hands he must beat 
his way through the thicket. He must carry his sad heart with 
him and the consciousness that his friends have utterly forsaken 
him ; that there is no light above him ; that in all the universe 
he is alone. There is only one sure thing, the compass of all 
his wandering ; it is his integrity. The sense of truth and 
right within him he cannot surrender. This he says must now 
" be to me for salvation." 

The remainder of the book tells us the story of the perilous 
passage of the soul of Job "between two worlds, one dead, the 



Lesson I.] 



THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. 



123 



other waiting to be born." He must tread the wine press 
alone. He must hammer out his destiny with fear and tremb- 
ling, " and the triumphant issue to which he came is a strange 
forecast of those later words of Paul : " It is God that 
worketh within you to work and to will of his good pleasure." 
" Worketh within you !" That was the one thing to which Job 
clung, the sense of truth in his soul, the inner light. That was 
all he saw at first. He could not yet identify the inner convic- 
tion with the outer fact ; could not yet see clearly that 

"Nothing can be good in him 
Which evil is in me." 

But when the protests of his friends grown more feeble and 
inapposite are all over, when Elihu the youthful champion of 
orthodoxy is through his wordy harangue and God speaks, then 
Job begins to come out from the thicket through which he has 
beaten his way, out from the dark cloud which has hidden every 
light except the single ray within him. God says to Job, — 

" Gird up thy loins now like a strong man 
And I will ask thee and inform me thou." 

Thus at length Job is to get his hearing and his justification 
from God himself. Yet there is no formal vindication of Job ; 
there is little light shed upon the dark problem of pain and 
suffering. To our surprise at first the drama yields no general 
theodicy. Job simply receives the theodicy his soul needs. 
God asserts himself and declares to his anguished servant 
" the perpetual self-justifying course of a harmonious universe." 
The great majority of those who, spite of all its pain, believe 
our life to be after all somehow good, cannot tell you why. Like 
Job, they see God and it is enough. In that presence Job 
grows tender and humble and courageous. He does not 
retreat from his position. He does not surrender the sense of 
his integrity or reaffirm the traditional faith. No ! the old 
world of his faith is forever dead, but the new world of a 



124 THE AFFLICTIONS OF JOB. [Second Quarter. 

larger and clearer faith at length is born. He asks no vindic- 
ation when God is done. His whole soul utters itself in one 
triumphant exclamation, — 

" I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear 
But now mine eye seeth thee. ' ' 

Now he knows that the God in whom he once believed and 
about whom his friends still babble on, is only a hearsay God. 
Their revelation corresponds to no deep reality in the soul 
itself. They can even belie the deepest facts of consciousness 
in order to defend their doctrine of God. But Job by his 
fidelity to the deep and indisputable facts within him has found 
their correspondence with the facts without him. There has 
burst at length upon him the blessed revelation that God and 
truth are one. By maintaining the integrity of his own deep- 
est nature he has at last found the ground of an invincible 
faith ; no longer a hearsay God, but a God " whom mine eye 
seeth." 

If we have caught the spirit of this wondrous book we shall 
love it with a deeper love than ever and shall begin to see how 
in truth it is " all men's book." And when the days come, as 
come they will and must to some of us, that knock away the 
props of tradition, when the God of whom we have been told 
seems only a hearsay God, when we must choose between truth 
and tradition, we shall find comfort and courage in the story 
of Job. Moreover, it may reflect new light on the path of the 
great Servant of Jehovah, who, because he also maintained his 
integrity before God and walked in the light of his soul, "was 
despised and rejected of men while we esteemed him smitten 
of God and afflicted." It will disclose the deeper meaning of 
his words in the face of death, — " I came to bear witness to the 
truth," and will establish in our hearts the unshakable convic- 
tion which the cross of Christ forever demonstrates, that God 
and Truth are one, 



Alternative lessor; I, f\pn\ 2. 

[Easter Wesson.] 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, 

Matthew xxviii : i-io. 

By Rev. Professor D. F. ESTES, Hamilton, N. Y. 

IN the interval between the crucifixion and resurrection of 
Jesus there were many individuals and groups in Jeru- 
salem whose feelings and behavior we may try to imagine. 
Did no single sting of conscience trouble the Sanhedrim in their 
hour of triumph, when the Galilean prophet had been executed 
at their demand, and the tomb where the lifeless body lay had 
been secured with seal and guard ? How felt Pilate and his 
wife, when she eagerly questioned as to the result of her dream- 
prompted message, and he described to her the man of Naza- 
reth, mocked, wounded, condemned, but more than kingly in 
his silent dignity, and more than human in his righteousness 
and patience? Of Judas we know. The swart face of the 
suicide in his ghastly death-pallor was buried in the field which 
the wages of his treachery should buy, this brief possession his 
sole reward. 

From the foot of the cross, John, the beloved, led to his own 
house Mary, the mother of Jesus, through whose soul a sword 
had indeed passed. Was Peter in his sorrow and penitence 
with them through all the Sabbath hours as he surely was at 
Easter dawn ? How fared it with the household at Bethany ? 
Were they who had made such proof that Jesus is the resur- 



126 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. [Second Quarter 

rection and the life as hopeless as all others? Did the twelve 
and the rest of those who had hoped that it was he who should 
redeem Israel, shrink from each other in their disappointment 
and their fear, or did they, like frightened sheep, huddle together, 
finding sympathy at least in each other's sorrow? 

The women who had been drawn together by their desire to 
serve Jesus in his life, were, we are assured, still drawn together 
by their desire to minister to him in his death. During his 
work in Galilee, Mary of Magdala, and Joanna, the wife of 
Chuza, Herod's steward, also Susanna, and many more accom- 
panied him, grateful for healing, providing for his needs from 
their possessions. With little chance of error, we may add two 
more names to the list of those known to have been of this 
company : Salome, the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, the 
wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John ; and " the 
other " Mary, the wife of Alphaeus and the mother of James 
and Jude. This company had come to Jerusalem to be near 
Jesus during the Passover season. Three of them, the two 
Marys and Salome, are named among the many who had 
followed from Galilee and who stood by the cross, and the two 
Marys with Salome and Joanna were among those who, in 
the dawn of the first Easter, sought the tomb to find it empty. 

Sorrowful and anxious must have been the vigils of these 
women, " last at the cross, first at the tomb," as daughters of 
Eve fitly first to know that the promise made to their mother 
had found complete fulfilment in the triumph of Jesus, pre- 
cursors and types of the host of christian women who have 
since enriched earth with their watching and weeping and 
praying and serving. We may well fancy that after John had 
led Mary from " the place which is called The Skull," the others 
had watched with straining eyes amid the unnatural gloom, had 
marked the head dropping in death, had beheld the spear- 
thrust, and at last, as the sun, nearing the horizon, cast the 
shadows of temple and palace along the slopes of Olivet, had 



tfiSSON t] 



THE REStmRfeCHON OF CtifctSt. 



127 



seen Joseph and Nicodemus tenderly taking the body from the 
cross, wrapping it hastily in linen, heaping it over with spices, 
reverently leaving it in the tomb which had never known occu- 
pant before, and closing the door with a stone whose weight 
taxed their united strength ; and then they had gone to their 
abiding place to weep and plan and prepare to serve when the 
dawning first day should permit. 

The Sabbath was spent in enforced inaction. In their 
privacy the women do not seem even to have heard of the seal 
and the guard. Their only fear as they approached the tomb, 
was that they should be unable to remove the stone. When 
the sunset of the Sabbath allowed business to be done, we may 
suppose that they hastened to purchase the spices and oint- 
ments which would be necessary for the completion of the 
embalming which had been scarce begun on the late afternoon 
of the crucifixion day. Hours of patient night toil in their 
preparations followed, and as soon as it began to dawn toward 
the first day of the week, the women were ready to set out for 
the tomb. With good reason we may think that the party was 
not a small one. It was not unnatural that it should break into 
groups. While some followed heavier burdened, the two Marys 
pressed on before in their impatience to reach the place in the 
garden where their thoughts had been abiding. 

Going as they supposed to sorrowful service, they were 
unwittingly hastening to joy of which they had not dreamed as 
even possible. Death had given place to triumphant life. 
The lately crucified and buried one was now the Risen One. 
Within the garden tomb the power of God had wrought more 
mightily and gloriously than anywhere else in human history. 
But of all this we can not know the manner, we can only know 
the fact. All the gospels tell us that Christ rose from the dead, 
none tells us how he rose. Doubtless the Evangelists knew no 
more than they told. How by divine power the quickened 
spirit came to the incorrupt body, re-animated it, transformed 



128 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. [Second Quarter. 



it so that it was no longer merely that which is sown, but 
became that which shall be, first fruits of the harvest, conformed 
to the spirit and fitted for its service, — how this was wrought 
we are not told, because almost certainly no man ever knew or 
could be told. Matthew confines himself to such of the 
attendant circumstances as most nearly concerned the women 
whose feet sorrow made eager to fly tomb-ward. 

First, there was an earthquake. Earth which had shaken 
when the spirit of Jesus left his body, now shook again as they 
were re- united. Earth which shall quiver amid the terrors of 
the resurrection to the last judgment now trembled at the 
resurrection of him who shall himself be judge. How extended 
this earthquake was we have no means of knowing. It may 
have centred about the tomb, reaching little farther, finding its 
chief purpose in shattering the seal of Rome, which in vain 
pomp had been set upon the stone. " He that sitteth in the 
heavens shall laugh, Jehovah shall have them in derision." He 
but lifted his finger, he but willed, and the quaking earth 
crumbled Rome's imperial seal to dust. 

Then came a messenger of the Lord, doubtless one of those 
beings for whom we have no name but angelic, because we 
know their office but have no idea of their nature. He rolled 
away the stone which lay, heavy and sullen, against the door. 
The women, as they came, were anxiously questioning how they 
could find entrance through the passage which it barred. 
Many an anxious soul has drawn comfort from the story, how 
an angel rolled away the stone and made their anxiety need- 
less. Its assurance ought to sink into every soul and give it 
peace, so that we shall no longer be questioning, "Who shall 
roll us away the stone?" when God's power may already have 
removed the difficulty, surely can and surely will remove it, so 
that we can go straight forward in every path of duty. 

We may also remind ourselves that from every tomb was 
the stone rolled when it was rolled from Christ's tomb. Heavy, 



IvESSON I.] 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



129 



stern, immovable, lay the weight of hopelessness before the 
burial-place of every dead one, until Christ came forth from 
Joseph's opened tomb, but now the stone is everywhere rolled 
away. To be sure the graves of earth are not emptied yet, 
their tenants still occupy, but as we gaze upon them, as we go 
down toward them, we know that there is no stone of doubt 
and hopelessness resting upon them. When the angel rolled 
away the stone from that garden tomb early on that Easter 
morning, it was rolled from every tomb, and the dead have but 
to hear the trumpet to come forth. 

Having rolled away the stone, the angel seated himself upon 
it. His appearance was gloriously brilliant, so that the eye could 
no more bear it than the very light itself, and his raiment was 
dazzlingly white as the snow. Is it any wonder that before such 
a being, the soldiers, rude, earthy, sinful, shrank back in terror ? 
It may be that they had stood undaunted while the earth trem- 
bled beneath their feet. A Roman soldier stood, unshaken, at 
his post while the falling ashes buried Pompeii and himself, to be 
a martyr and monument of duty. But before God's angel the 
very Roman guards lay prostrate, faint and swooning in terror. 

The mission of the heavenly messenger, or rather messengers, 
for there were more than one, may be in some respects a matter 
of question more than of assertion or knowledge. Did they 
fold the grave-clothes of Jesus? Why was the stone left for 
them to roll away? Had they any message for the terrified 
soldiers? Were they visible all the time or to all persons? 
We certainly know that they had a message for the women, 
fulfilling thus their great office of ministering to those who 
shall inherit salvation. To them, trembling still at the earth- 
quake if themselves had felt its power, naturally startled at the 
prostrate forms of the guards, if they had not yet shrunk away 
into the city, certainly awestruck at the displaced stone, the 
open tomb, the form majestic in whiteness and light, came the 
gentle tones of comforting address. 

9 



130 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. [Second Quarter. 

"Fear not ye" with an emphasis on the "ye" which 
impliedly contrasted the loving seekers with the guards. 
" Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus the crucified." 
They had nothing to fear from the servitors who came from 
heaven to assist in the resurrection, and to announce it first. 
They had no occasion to fear anything. Stone, seal or soldiers, 
earthquake or angel, nought should harm those who lovingly 
sought the crucified, even though they knew him not yet as the 
Risen One. The message which soothed them may not unfairly 
be turned to our own comfort. At Christmas time we sing : 

"Oye, beneath life's crushing load, 

Whose forms are bending low, 
Who toil along the climbing way, 

With painful steps and slow ; — 
Look up! for glad and golden hours 

Come swiftly on the wing; 
Oh, rest beside the weary road, 

And hear the angels sing! " 

At Easter time, as well, we may listen, amid all doubts and fears, 
to find that the tones of the angels spoken so long ago in other 
ears, echo still to ours, if only we would see Jesus : " Fear not 
ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus." 

The message to the women mounts from encouragement to 
comfort, from comfort to joy : " He is not here, for he is risen, 
even as he said." The first announcement of this stupendous, 
crowning fact, the most significant, not only of the gospel story, 
but also of all history, falls from the lips of an angel, such a 
one as strives to read the sense of these stories and scenes and 
transactions of earth, and yet must forever fail in this endeavor. 
How could one who has never known the heartache and the 
tear, the shadow of death long preceding far following 
the agony of the closing coffin and the dull sounding clods ; 
how could such a one sound the depth of the meaning of the 
message which he was the first to utter, " He is risen ?" 



Lesson 1-1 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. I3I 

" He is risen, as he said." Then a divine seal is set on his 
every claim and saying, and our faith is valid. " He is risen ; " 
then we have a living Saviour, declared to be the Son of God 
with power. " He is risen ; " then death is vanquished, and the 
uniform victory of the universal victor has been broken, the 
beginning of his complete and eternal defeat. " He is risen," 
the first fruits, the promise, the power of universal resurrection. 
" He is risen," then we too shall rise. 

The wonderful message has a confirmation. The women 
may see the place where he lay. Doubtless, awe-struck but 
eager, the women pressed to the door and saw what John and 
Peter later saw, the grave-clothes lying in order, and the hand- 
kerchief which had bound his face carefully laid by itself, and 
doubtless, as Peter and John, so the women needed but a 
glance to be convinced. 

Scarcely pausing at all to hear the messages of comfort and 
of truth, the angel adds a message of duty. The women must 
go quickly to the disciples. Delay does not befit the errands 
of the Lord. They must tell them of his resurrection, and 
must remind them that he would precede them into Galilee. 
It was not asserted or implied that he would not manifest him- 
self at all at Jerusalem, and to the disciples in general he did 
not show himself till the great company came together upon 
the Galilean mountain. 

They turn to go, those women of whose names or even 
number we can not be fully sure. Mary Magdalene surely was 
not with them. At first sight of the displaced stone she had 
hurried away to notify Peter and John, then to follow them 
back, and to have herself the vision of angels and the first sight 
of the risen Lord. The rest now, with intense emotion, fear and 
joy inextricably interwoven, with eager feet run as bidden to 
bring the disciples word. It may be that they scattered into 
groups as they went, seeking the different quarters where disci- 
ples might be found, and that Joanna and Mary the mother of 



132 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. [Second Quarter. 

James were not with the rest when Solome and the others saw 
Jesus. However it may have been, to those women who had 
taken the message from the lips of the angel and were hurrying 
to deliver it, came Jesus himself, with kindly greeting, " Hail." 

Curiously but vainly do we question as to the details of the 
appearance of Jesus. Of some things however we may be 
assured. Jesus stood before them not in unsubstantial vision, 
but in veritable personality. He was re-embodied, and it was 
not a form temporarily assumed, but his own body, through 
which he was manifested. This was the very same body which 
had been nailed to the cross and laid in the tomb, although we 
have no right arbitrarily to make this identity to consist in any 
particular fact or relation. Though the same body, it was also 
the same body transformed, to use St. Paul's distinction, no 
longer a " psychical " body but a " pneumatic " body. Perhaps 
the very completeness of the fitness thus implied to serve and 
to manifest the spiritual nature, was the reason why he so often 
was, for a time at least, unrecognized. 

Now, however, he is recognized, and the women, grasping 
his feet with reverent touch, prostrated themselves in adora- 
tion. They did not doubt, they believed, and yet their hearts 
were thrilled and stirred with an awe that was close akin to 
fear. Accordingly from the lips of Jesus fall the same encour- 
aging words which they had heard from the angel but a few 
moments before, " Fear not." He also repeats the message of 
duty, but makes it wonderfully more tender as he repeats, " Go 
tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee," and crowns the 
whole with the promise that there they shall see him. 

Suddenly as he had come, he disappeared from their sight, 
and the women hastened on their errand to the disciples. 
There is no reason for limiting the word " brethren " either to 
the kinsmen of Jesus after the flesh or to the Twelve. " Who- 
soever shall do the will of my Father who is in Heaven, he is 
my brother," What Jesus had condescended to say in the 



IyESSON I.] 



THE ftEStJRkECtiON OF CfcklST. 



*33 



days of his flesh, when he was like us, this his word repeats 
after resurrection has made him for a time at least unlike us. 
Even now the believer's uplifted eye and longing heart may 
recognize in him on the heavenly throne none other than a 
brother. 

The message of the women to the brethren was soon per- 
formed. Twelve days after, they were in Galilee, soon five 
hundred of them at once saw Jesus, forty days and he was 
taken from the sight of men till the end. Thus the message 
has lost its original force by fulfilment, yet the loving heart 
delights in what it suggests. The risen Lord has gone beyond 
Galilee. Heaven has received him. Whither he has gone 
before, we too shall follow, and there we shall see him. Easter 
is memory less than promise, promise of rent tombs and opened 
graves, promise of corruption putting on incorruption, and of 
death swallowed up in victory, promise of Christ receiving us 
to himself. "And so shall we ever be with the Lord." 



(essof? II. ppril 9. 



AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. 

Job v: 17-27: 

By Rev. H. H. PBABODY, D. D., Rome, N. Y. 

THIS lesson describes an old-time attempt to console one 
overtaken by calamity. The speaker is Eliphaz, one of 
the three friends in the religious drama who, hearing of 
Job's afflictions, had come to comfort him as he sat disfigured 
in his leper-house. He and Job had talked together before. 
Eliphaz we may think of as older than Job, with a reputation 
for wisdom ; one whose tone was that of certitude, as if he 
had been a prophet. Like Job he was a non-Israelite, for he 
dwelt in Teman, a district of Edom. 

Who and what was Job, and what occasioned this " seance 
of sorrow?" While the book is not to be taken as literal his- 
tory, Job was probably more than an ideal, some popular hero 
or prince having actual existence in the land of Uz, " greatest 
of all the sons of the East." So pure was his virtue that the 
Lord pronounced him the least blemished of mortals. As in' 
the belief of that day prosperity was supposed to follow right- 
eousness, the writer makes his hero rich in thousands of sheep 
and camels, and surrounds him with happy sons and daughters. 
Strength and tenderness blend in him in ideal proportions. He 
has indestructible integrity, yet is far removed from over-con- 
fidence. His is a real humility, closely allied to the reverence 
with which he looks up to God. He is not self-righteous but 
righteous. His power he uses not for selfish advancement, but 
chivalrously for the defense of any weak party. His love moves 



Lesson II.] 



AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. 



135 



irresistibly to relieve distressed humanity ; and so far is he from 
the Oriental despot as to allow all men, even slaves, to call him 
brother. Truly " there is none like him on the earth." 

Sent forth from the " celestial council " Satan is to test this 
man with dreadful severity. At once his misfortunes begin. 
Disaster follows disaster in swift succession. The Sabseans in 
the south, the Chaldeans in the east kill his servants and his 
grazing flocks. Fire falls from the sky, equally destructive. 
Finally the whirlwind, striking in its fatal course the house in 
which his children are met, in a twinkling bereaves him of them 
all. In appalling climax, yet calling out no word of complaint, 
a most loathsome form of leprosy is added to the list of his 
calamities, in consequence of which Job is sent to the leper's 
abode, away from the dwellings of men. Here his three friends 
find him, and try to comfort him. Mystically brooding, like true 
sons of the eastern desert, they sit for a long time, awed by 
his grief, till at last Job opens his mouth and curses his day. 

The lesson is part of Eliphaz's reply to this outcry of Job. 
Job's plaint is that of bitter despair, not reckless in the sense of 
irreligious, but desperate and vehement, as when the heart is 
bruised, and faith, confused and darkened, loses her way. His 
cry is that of one whose spiritual vision is eclipsed. The whirl- 
wind has struck the house of his faith, and all its beams are 
trembling from the shock. The question : " If man needs be 
born why should he not pass at once to the grave?" evinces 
that Job's philosophy of suffering has suddenly failed, and that 
earth presents itself to him as a vast and cruel torture chamber. 
There is rebellion within. He cannot brook outrage even from 
his Maker, and outrage it seems, since his heart sees no divine 
intent in the suffering. Yet his rebellion is rather from defect- 
ive light than from wilfulness. 

As with all men in deep trouble, Job's only possible comfort 
is what the truth can give. Job is in distress for some spiritual 
interpretation of his recent experience, which may save to him 



1 36 AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. [Second Quarter. 

the divine beneficence, and so save him from what to his 
earnest nature would be the worst conceivable disaster, the 
wreck of his faith. 

All men when at their best wish to be ministering spirits. 
Few there are who do not try their hand at comforting their 
fellows. But Eliphaz deemed himself a master in the art. 
What large and tender consolation had he then for his friend ? 
He gave what he had, as do we all, but the limits of his insight 
tended to defeat his attempt. He fails to throw any interpre- 
tative light across the field of Job's experience, the only way 
really to comfort him, but instead, implies that it betokens 
guilt. He states the general truth, than which nothing is more 
consoling, that the interior life is meant to be advanced by 
suffering divinely imposed. " Happy the man whom God 
correcteth." Yet, spite of Job's piety, and he had felt its 
strength and sweetness, he thought — his theory pressed him to 
this — that even in so good a man, covered up in some corner 
of his life, were guilty things which accounted for the curses of 
marauder, lightning, cyclone, disease and death. Eliphaz views 
these calamities as direct penalties from God for definite sins. 
Logically he demands repentance. Let Job sorrow the sorrow 
which reforms the life and back will come the old prosperity. 
Then nature will lose its power to harm Job : " He shall deliver 
thee in six troubles ; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch 
thee." " Destruction when it cometh," flood, fire and storm 
shall pass thee harmlessly by. That is, by this theory, moral 
perfection makes physical evil an impossibility. Repent, and 
you will be a millionaire. This was the comfort that Eliphaz 
proffered Job. It was the best he had. 

Job casts it aside with indignation. It was at best only a 
half truth, and a half truth can be more cruel than a lie. 
Intended to relieve, it only intensified the poor man's distress, 
since it tended to destroy what comfort remained in the midst 
of his sorrow, the consciousness that before and since his 
troubles he had preserved the central integrity of his heart. 



Wesson II.] 



AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. 



13) 



His experience gave the theology of Eliphaz the lie. It is not 
true that physical evil passes the righteous by unharmed. It is 
not true now and it was not then, that such calamities as the 
volcano, the tornado and the electric discharge bring, are agents 
of the divine wrath. A cyclone is no respector of persons 
to be brought on or warded off by bad or good conduct 
in men. John VVinthrop, who thought that a great tempest 
in Connecticut, occurring the same hour when Margaret 
Jones was executed for witchcraft, was stirred by Satanic influ- 
ence, was a true disciple of Eliphaz in misinterpreting God's 
ways. Formerly every potato rot, drought and epidemic was 
looked upon as God's emphatic censure for some particular sin. 
It was the well-nigh universal primitive belief that prosperity 
and adversity meant the good will or the ill will of the gods, 
and that earth-quakes, noisome pestilences and storms were 
their enginery of retribution, brought to bear upon sinners with 
unerring accuracy. That the sun should shine alike on good 
and bad, or that the tower of Siloam could fall upon any but 
sinners, was too much even for the marvel-loving Jew. 

In this belief of Eliphaz and of his times, Job, too, shared. 
The two saw eye to eye, yet the philosopher did not comfort 
Job for the reason that he was conscious of no guilt. Could he 
have found the soot spots on his heart, he might easily have 
accounted for his calamities, but they were not there. He 
denied with indignation the hidden sin which his friend sur- 
mised. While agreeing to the general trend of the Teman- 
ite's argument, he warmly rejected its personal application. 
Evidently he had observed that good men, devoid of special 
guilt, often suffer from outward calamity ; he now stood facing 
the same truth in his own experience. A single intractable fact 
brought straight home to a man's business and bosom, will do 
much to disabuse him of a pernicious theory. 

The problem that Job struggled over is ever new. There 
are ills not arising from our sins, from which no care-taking 
will insure us exemption. Nature still holds on to her destruc- 



138 AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. [Second Quarter. 

tive ways. Every prophet's work is largely one of consolation. 
Men accept their sin-punishments in mute acquiescence • 
would indeed mistrust the divine beneficence did they not 
befall. But the cyclone which spins the settler's cabin into 
ruins, the outbursting volcano depopulating some sunny land, 
the storm at sea that dresses in black so many families along 
the shore, the awful conflagration which licks up with its tongues 
of fire the blood of a frantic multitude, — these we cannot trace 
to anything the sufferers have done. In the light we now have 
touching nature, to talk about them in the Eliphaz strain would 
be blasphemy. The laws of retribution within us and of physi- 
cal nature without us we understand better now, and we do 
not so easily confound the two. The God who pays the wages 
of sin for the breach of moral law we accept more and more, 
only to query over inflictions which have no such meaning. 

What then shall we say to correct the Temanite's false notion 
that all pain is penal ? Why should the good suffer? If these 
calamities of Job were not wages of sin what were they, and what 
is signified when Satan is represented as arbitrarily imposing them ? 

In our day we think perhaps too little of calamities as puni- 
tory. The boy who thrusts his finger into the candle does not 
figure it as sent to burn him but to give him light. Pestilence 
and whirlwind have no selective power. No saint of to-day, at 
all intelligent, would think of asking exemption from either on 
account of his saintliness, if he put himself in their way. Now 
and then one will be found talking of such misfortunes in the old 
Eliphaz strain, but to most they are accepted as consistent with 
divine love, because affording beneficial discipline in the school 
of life. Here is the truth after which Job was vaguely feeling. 

The true " sources of consolation " for life's non-punitory ills 
are higher up than Eliphaz could see, in a more comprehensive 
vision of God, where all semblance of cruelty forever disappears, 
— a vision widening the field of the divine beneficence, cover- 
ing the very calamities which so threw Job's cheer into eclipse, 






Lessox IL] AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. 1^9 

and revealing the Father's Jove both in punishment and in his 
general discipline of his children. 

Sometimes when reports of calamities cast their mystery- 
shadows upon us. we would fain retire to some land where they 
might never come. But think what would be involved in the 
absence of dangers and losses. From infant days perils are 
around us. Childhood is continually tormented by them. The 
whirlwind, the lightning, and numberless pettier perils had been 
about Job as a boy — the wasp to sting, the leaf to poison,. 
disease to prostrate him. Could he not see that if his child- 
hood had been cushioned in perfect security, he had enjoyed 
no growth of character? Fear is developed early. The child 
is startled at the ocean's roar and the shriek of the midnight 
wind. What endless bumps and bruises a boy gets before he 
becomes properly on his guard against physical evil. This is 
hard but beneficent, since without such experience in smaller 
perils one could gain no fit cosmological training. More : 
In this "institute of danger" childhood begins building char- 
acter in the invaluable forms of courage, patience, and prudence. 

The same is true touching the childhood of the race. Had 
there been no peril, no trial, life would have been stagnant and 
drowsy. Under the stimulus of danger, art, science, industrial 
civilization, all are spurred to perpetual advance. We got our 
first schooling as a race in overcoming the foes of our physical 
life and peace. By energy, fortitude and heroism, races mount 
to material security, and they maintain this only by a vigilance 
kept alert through the sense of danger. To banish the perilous 
and the trying would be to close the door of the school in 
which we receive our best education and character, our best 
outfit both for ordinary and for the highest sort of life. 

To this we add the consolation which comes from seeing the 
vicarious use of suffering, from vision of the benefit to some one 
from your deprivation. Many a pang to the utility of which 
we are blind will, when looked upon from some more spiritual 
altitude, console us, in that it has told upon the corporate good. 






I40 AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. [Second Quarter. 

The aged and dependent craftsman regards as a calamity the 
invention of the machine which will displace him and force him 
into idleness and penury. It should, however, comfort him 
that this machine is finally to cheapen goods for the poor, to 
increase the wages and lighten the toils of multitudes. In 
this way one sees himself a sufferer for the common good, and 
is at once made braver, coming verily to rejoice in the cross. 
Even the man who suffers from pestilence and storm may glory 
in the inexorable as being the merciful, since all past calamity 
tends to make the present safer. For, meantime, no fate 
befalling us in the material world can in the least injure our 
immortal part. Drown the body in the sea, crisp it in the fire, 
mangle it in the wreck ; if this is all, it is yet well with the 
essential man, and if his death has bettered others' life, he has 
gained. Not all the whirlwinds brewed upon the deserts of 
that East where he had his home, could have brought loss to 
Job's spirit like a single act of wrong. 

Still higher does consolation rise if we welcome the truth that 
innocent suffering is, for all we know, as intrinsically necessary 
as merited punishment. We cannot exactly demonstrate this 
necessity, but the harmony which the assumption of it brings to 
the moral world, gives it a certainty which demonstration could 
scarcely increase. Job was not perfect. Ideals existed which 
were unopened to him, or opened yet unreached. The most 
perfect characters reveal imperfections under the moral search- 
light of Christ, and men called good wonder that any one ever 
thought them ideals at all. Job was the best among many, 
though far from absolute excellence. Why he should bear 
undeserved suffering is answered in what he came to be. 
Suffering always adds quality to character, toning down the 
harsh and coarse, lifting up common-place piety into distinctly 
fine and heroic character, cooling the heat of sensuous ambition 
and starting unquenchable aspirations. Life's best wine is not 
pressed from the vintage of prosperity. It is a fact that without 
suffering men do not rise, but sink, while under afflictions 



Lesson II.] AFFLICTIONS SANCTIFIED. 14I 

properly borne life tends to greater richness, fulness and power. 

Job's worst loss was his loss of faith in the power of righteous- 
ness to insure prosperity. This, too, had its consolation higher 
up. Real heroism is known by the way it strips itself of material 
good in loyalty to the duty-call. If it be true that righteous- 
ness usually tends to prosperity, it is also true that it may limit 
the same. Let us not, carried away with the romance of 
virtue, ascribe to it more of material victory than actual life 
warrants. If we do, the awakening is disastrous, for honesty is 
on occasion seen to be poor policy. In competition with 
unrighteousness the good man often fails and is driven to the 
wall. Not but that righteousness benefits in many ways, yet 
many forms of virtue, carried beyond the conventional to the 
ideal, certainly involve sacrifice of lower good. What can 
console us then ? This, that, looked at from the interior, honesty 
is not policy at all, but a law of spirit's life. Virtue is all the more 
virtue since to maintain it sacrifice is required. If it were not 
so, if virtue opened at once upon a paradise of fat things, then 
there need be no struggle on the way to perfection. Every 
surrender of the lower good for the sake of righteousness yields 
a stronger hold upon all the elements of christian life — more 
peace, joy, strength. Here in the realm of the spiritual we find 
ample consolation for all the material losses that virtue brings. 

So we take up the note of trust spoken by Eliphaz, " Behold, 
happy is the man whom God correcteth," and lift it to a richer 
music in Christ. Not for Job, certainly not for us though in 
our fuller light, has the mystery entirely withdrawn. But a con- 
dition of calm trust is possible for us, where the unsolved shall 
cease to perplex. We are not to be dandled into quiet, like a 
broken-hearted child, but treated so as to develop life and 
power. We need not ask for comfort but for life. God cannot 
comfort us in any comprehensive measure except by leading us 
on into more real life. So Job was won back to trust and set 
face to face with the old integrities. So may we be won. Then, 
if mystery remains ; we will carry its secret exultingly within. 



lessoi? III. /Jpril 16. 



JOB'S APPEAL TO GOD. 

Job xxiii : i-io. 

By Rkv. GEORGE E. MERRIIyly, Newton, Mass. 

THE tide of trial often sweeps so heavily over a man's 
faith, that it survives only with struggle. For the time, 
reason is wholly submerged ; light-winged imagination 
and airy hope are snared like a butterfly in the waters ; only 
faith shows its superiority, and holds on to life until the trial is 
overpast. Then reason is re-born ; hope leaps up again ; fancy 
once more sketches its beautiful and not always illusive pictures, 
and we are sane and whole, living with that " abundant " life of 
which St. Paul speaks, making the happy present rich with the 
treasures of both past and future. 

Such a time of trial is before us in the drama of Job's life. 
His words are those of perplexity. His friends, who have tried 
to console him by telling him that they know all about it, have 
made the matter worse. There is no task more delicate than 
consolation, and the failure is always miserable, when, in place 
of simple, heartfelt sympathy, the would-be consoler brings an 
easy philosophy of the ways of the Most High, and expects 
his diagnosis of your case to be taken as its remedy. Even if 
the Book of Job had no other purpose than to teach us how to 
comfort the sorrowing, it would be one of the most valuable 
books in the world. 



Lesson III.] 



job's APPEAL TO GOD. 



M3 



In the fifth chapter, Eliphaz has spoken feelingly with Job of 
the uses of affliction, and in beautiful and doubtless true lan- 
guage has set before him the value of pain as a correction from 
the Lord. But it may be doubted whether a child ever felt the 
rod any the less from being assured that his punishment was 
wholly for his good. The assurance itself only brings an addi- 
tional pang in the thought of the personal vileness that breeds 
such dire necessity. To a sensitive soul, chastisement may be 
harder to bear than punishment would be to a soul less delicate. 
The words of Eliphaz, beautiful as they are and hopeful of a 
brighter future, have not solved the problem for Job. And so 
he cries out here : " Oh, that I knew where I might find God, 
that I might come even to his seat !" It is the last cry of a 
believing soul. Earthly friends fail us. Not one knows the 
bitterness of the cup. No reasonings cover the case. Men 
throw out their little cantilever spans, like poor inch-worms 
feeling for the next place for a foot- hold ; but the space is 
infinite, and no resting place is found. The bridge is impossible. 
God is ever beyond, and the heart still cries out after him, who 
alone can reveal himself by his own act of grace. God can 
help. He can console. We feel sure of this all the time. If 
we can only find him, we shall find what we need. And so 
we cry out as Job did : " Oh that I knew where I might find 
him, that I might come even to his seat !" 

To find God ! This is the greatest problem in all humanity's 
search. "Show us the Father and it sufnceth us," said Philip 
to Jesus. Well it might " suffice " them ! Such a revelation 
would have satisfied the craving of all ages in all the world. 
The growth of the idea of God in the human mind affords sub- 
ject for study of the most interesting and important kind. To 
some it seems that all ideas of God, however various, are cor- 
ruptions of an original revelation of God's true nature to the 
soul of man, so that all the heathen mythologies retain traces of 
truth, and are witnesses to man's struggle to keep some belief 



144 JOB'S APPEAL TO GOD. [Second Quarter. 

in deity. To others the growth of religion seems more natural, 
beginning with the crudest notions of a power beyond and 
above our own life to which we owe allegiance, while from 
these crudest ideas the mind has been led on to monotheism 
at last, to. the One God as the First Cause, the Ever Living 
Spirit from whom all things proceed. But whatever view is 
taken, it is manifest that to all men in all time the greatest 
problem has been to find God. It would " suffice them " if 
they could "come even to his seat." They have longed as 
Job did, "to order their cause before him." If they have not 
been able to discover the secret of his Presence, they have 
resorted to every expedient, however childish or awful, to sub- 
stitute for that Presence something that might represent God : 
they have sought out " a tree that will not rot " and " set up a 
graven image that shall not be moved." Or, if not content 
with this deity of their own manufacture, they have thought of 
God as a far-off God, dreadful in his almightiness, an omni- 
potent tyrant to be appeased by gifts or placated by bloody 
sacrifices of themselves or their children. Sometimes men 
have come very near to God, and their thoughts of his good- 
ness and righteousness have been strangely close to the revela- 
tion made of him by Jesus Christ at last. But all their striv- 
ings, all their failures have proved one thing beyond contro- 
versy : that there is a spirit in man, and that it is inevitable 
that man should reach out after God, the Author of his being, 
the Sustainer of his life, the Lord of his conscience, and the 
End, to whom all things tend. God is the Alpha and the 
Omega of the soul's alphabet, within whose limits lie all the 
possibilities of human thought. 

But in the lesson before us now, there is no vague specula- 
tion with regard to God. Job's search for him was not that of 
mere philosophy ; it was the longing of an ardent faith. Long 
ago this patriarch had got beyond the point of questioning 
God's existence. The drama does not anywhere present him 



tfesSON ill.] .Job's APPEAL TO GOt)* 145 

to us as a doubter, a scoffer. From the first he was a man of 
faith, though on that very account a man to be tested. Satan 
does not pursue those who are already his own with the perti- 
nacity with which he followed Job. The patriarch longs to find 
God, but it is the longing that springs from need; and that is 
justified by a firm belief that "God is, and is the rewarder of 
all such as diligently seek him." Job belonged to God, and 
he knew it. But he failed to find him now. And this was 
really the greatest test of Job's piety. Pain had not shaken his 
faith. But pain apart from God could not be borne. We often 
think that suffering is irreconcilable with a belief in God. But 
is it not even more impossible to understand it if we do not 
believe in God? Pain without God can have no explanation. 
Pain with God, with him to sustain, to overrule, to deliver, and 
out of all to bring to pass the glories of righteousness and the 
perfection of his eternal purposes of spiritual life, can have 
many explanations. If we have God and can reason with him, 
much of our darkness disappears. In his light we see light. 
If we cannot find God, and if there is no eternal purpose, no 
intelligent end to be reached by and by, however remote, then 
there seems to be no refuge from the most gloomy pessimism, 
when we consider the awful realities of this world. No man 
needs to find God so much as he who fully appreciates, either 
through his own experience, or a divinely born sympathy, the 
woes of life. And if for a while the heavens are as brass and 
there comes no quick answer to prayer, no answer save the 
mocking echo from those brazen skies that seem to contain no 
God, our case is hard indeed. It is the greatest trial of all, 
greater than the direst pain, to be in that suffering without the 
consciousness of God's presence. We remember the cry even 
from the Cross of Calvary : " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me." This was the supreme proof of Jesus Christ. 
And this was the trial of Job, when he turned from earth and 
all its disappointing friendships so powerless to help, and longed 

10 



14^ JOB'S APPEAL TO GOD. [Second Quarter. 

after God, only to find God hiding himself where he could not 
see him. Could it be that God was not to be found? Maybe 
Job could never find him. But his faith was too strong to be 
shaken by his own failure. If he could not find God, God 
could find him. " He hideth himself on the right hand, that I 
cannot see him. But he knoweth the way that I take." And 
so the sufferer comforted himself, as the righteous man will 
always comfort himself, in the fact that God knows, his 
knowledge covering all the need of our ignorance, his grace 
and power supplying all the strength that our frailty demands. 
To the true, to the good, it is always a joy that God finds us, 
even when we cannot find God. 

And now we come to a most interesting fact in Job's experi- 
ence. He did not think aright in all respects, as we shall note, 
but of two things he was sure : If he could find God, he 
believed that he would find him to be perfectly just on the 
one hand, and on the other perfectly loving and merciful. 
With respect to God's justice Job was right, though his belief 
that he himself would find perfect acceptance with that justice 
was wrong. Job went too far in his self-confidence. It was a 
pardonable fault. It was natural enough under the exasper- 
ating circumstances. He had been forced in his suffering to 
defend himself. He had been wrongfully accused by his three 
friends. When in the commonest courtesy they ought to have 
passed over his faults in silence, if indeed he had really sinned 
as they thought, they had proceeded to charge him with 
unrighteousness as the only cause for his present evil case. 
They had assumed that all his sufferings were in the way of 
retribution. Job knew they were not, and was forced to defend 
himself. If in his indignation he went too far, we can hardly 
wonder. But as we read his words we say to ourselves : What ! 
had this man got beyond the need of praying for the forgive- 
ness of sins ? Was he so pure that he needed not to utter 
the cry of David : " Cleanse thou me from secret faults I" He 



Lesson III.] Job's APPEAL TO GOt). I47 

is so sure of his own righteousness that he will reason 
with God, he will fill his mouth with arguments, sure that 
God will justify him. He knows God's mind. If Eliphaz 
has made the mistake of assuming to know too much 
about Job's case, Job makes the mistake of knowing too 
surely the mind of the Almighty. He, too, "darkens 
counsel by words without knowledge " And so Job would 
be bold to talk with God. But if we turn to the last 
chapters of the book we find that God came to Job. God 
spoke, but not as Job anticipated. Every sentence fell upon 
Job's ear to teach him that he had failed to realize his own 
imperfection and God's perfection. And then what did Job 
do, this child of God who had longed for a chance to reason 
with God and show him the rights of the case ? In the first 
verses of the fortieth chapter the patriarch speaks. This man, 
strong in his own righteousness, bold in his confidence that he 
is just in God's sight, resolved to fill his mouth with voluble 
argument if only he could find God, — this man says : " Behold 
I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my 
hand upon my mouth." And in the forty-second chapter : 
" Then Job answered the Lord and said : I know that thou 
canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be 
restrained. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowl- 
edge? Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not, 
things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. ... I had 
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye 
seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and 
ashes !" Ah, to see God is the end of controversy. We hear 
of him now ; we see as in a glass darkly ; we listen for his 
stately goings, but we cannot tell, for he is as the wind, that 
bloweth where it listeth ; we may think we know, or we may 
murmur and complain in darkness ; we may do, as Job would 
not do, rebel and defy and blaspheme ; but the time will come 
when God shall find us and reveal himself to us. Then the 



148 JOB'S APPEAL TO GOD, tSfccoNi) OuARtfek. 

hand will be put Upon the mouth ! Then we shall be still, and 
know that he is God. Happy if we now are wise reverently to 
acknowledge him and to wait patiently and truthfully for his 
salvation. 

For he has salvation for us. I said that Job was sure of two 
things, God's justice and God's love. He found God perfectly 
just, but that justice condemned him. He also found God's 
love, and that love forgave him, justified him, and restored 
him to life more abundant and satisfying than ever. He 
believed that God would " not contend with him in the greatness 
of his power." God would show him the mystery of his pain, 
and out of it all would bring forth good. Job knew his suffer- 
ings were not mere punishment. What they were for, he could 
not as yet understand. We know that they were to test him, 
and so they were to show the power of God's indwelling grace, 
the undying energy of faith and the righteousness that comes 
by faith. The enemies of God were to be silenced. Satanic 
sneers were to be put to shame. All these things were in the 
purpose of God in suffering his servant to be troubled. And 
thus it is always the rare privilege of suffering, to prove the 
soul superior to circumstance, if God upholds it and if his life is 
in it. " Who knows," said the adviser of Queen Esther, " if 
thou didst not come to the throne for this very purpose," and 
the words strengthened the beautiful queen to do her duty by 
her persecuted people. " Who knows," the righteous man may 
say to himself in any adversity, " who knows but this very pain 
may be my one greatest opportunity to prove that faith can with- 
stand trial, to honor God by my steadfast endurance, and to show 
the world that its direst evils cannot pluck me out of his hand. 
" Go tell your master," said a beleaguered general, who was 
summoned to surrender, " that I will show him how an English- 
man can die !" The hero of this splendid drama made similar 
answer : " Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." And that 
trust was not put to shame. Job's heroism failed not of its 



Lesson III.] 



JOB'S APPEAL TO GOD. 



I49 



reward. If God's truth could not admit Job to be perfectly 
righteous, yet God's love could redeem him and give him 
victory. The sufferer had fought a good fight, he had kept the 
faith. He had come forth like gold, purified from alloy, 
proved to be gold by surviving the fire. Now he could see 
God's purpose, see that love was all the time holding him and 
making him the conspicuous, the chosen and heroic example 
of its power. No wonder then that the drama ends with Satan 
foiled, and God's supremacy securing Job's felicity ! 

To find God ! The ancient patriarch found him and gloried 
in his love. Do we suffer, and in our pain long to find God ? 
"He who hath seen me hath seen the Father," are words that 
come from the one divine voice that we can hear. Let it 
"suffice us." "Let not your heart be troubled," said the same 
Saviour at that same time. Oh let us put away all doubt and 
all fear. We can afford to leave ourselves in the hands of him 
who was the God of Job, the Father of Jesus, and of whom 
Jesus was the perfect revelation in the flesh. " For this is life 
eternal, to know God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent !" 



lessoij 11/. ppril 23. 



JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. 

Job xlii: i-io. 
By Rev. EDWARD JUDSON, D. D., New York City. 

IN the philosophy of suffering the book of Job is the world's 
greatest classic. In all his thinking about pain man has 
never advanced beyond this book. Its theme is the old 
enigma, — the bitter cud which thoughtful and serious men have 
chewed from the beginning : Why does one sorrow after 
another submerge the righteous man ? Rhetorically the book 
consists of prologue, a first dialogue, a monologue, a second 
dialogue, and an epilogue. 

I. The statements of the enigma take up the prologue, 
chapters i-iii. What force any philosophic thesis has when 
couched in a story ! Here a metaphysical disquisition assumes 
the form of a dramatic poem. The artist throws upon his can- 
vas a titanic figure, Job. He is an Arab Sheikh of the ancient 
regime — a man whose righteousness was indubitable, yet whose 
sorrows were without precedent. He may very well have been 
an historic character, belonging to the patriarchal age. The 
story had become part of the folk-lore prevalent in the poet's 
time. People were perhaps in the habit of saying, "as unlucky 
as old Job." The artist takes this character as his stuff, just as 
Shakespeare took Julius Caesar, and he proceeds to weave out 
of it his philosophic drama. 

Job was a righteous man, perfect and upright, one that feared 
Qod and eschewed evil. A bad man would not have answered 



Lesson IV.] JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. 151 

as the subject of this poem, for then all readers would instinct- 
ively feel that when trouble came upon him it served him 
right. The central figure must be a man of exemplary charac- 
ter in order that we may appreciate the pinch of the mystery. 

He was at the outset a most prosperous man. This also the 
art of the piece requires. It would not do to make the great 
sufferer one who had never known better days. A man is really 
not capable of the deepest suffering who has never had his fill of 
happiness. How keen the distress which we experience when 
we feel the good things of this life slipping through our reluc- 
tant fingers ! It is possible for well-to-do people to over esti- 
mate the misery of the poor, imagining themselves, with their 
standard of comfort, to have lost all. Were those of us who 
are used to luxuries and have never had a chance to become 
callous to hardship, actually to sink into poverty, we should 
suffer far beyond what most of the poor suffer. Job must take 
this bitter headlong plunge from happiness into misery. For 

"A sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering 
happier things." 

This is the personage, so prosperous and so deserving, 
whom misfortune singles out as the target for her sharpest 
shafts. He experiences, first, loss of property. All his posses- 
sions are swept away. His sheep are killed by lightning. 
Bedouin Arabs swoop down and drive away his oxen and 
camels and asses. He who had been a millionaire, a prince 
of plenty, is reduced to absolute want. How many a man prefers 
death to endless contention with the disabilities of poverty ! 
The rich have their troubles, to be sure, but their money 
certainly enables them to purchase many kinds of alleviation 
and diversion. 

Then came loss of family. What parent but would prefer to 
bear anything rather than this ! We should not mind being 
stripped of all else we have, if only the dear ones of our home- 



152 JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. [Second Quarter. 

circle could be left us. But a cyclone comes, and at one stroke 
Job's seven sons and three daughters are hurried into eternity. 
His wife, indeed, was spared, but, through the keen irony of 
Providence, she was left only as a thorn in his side. She 
enhanced his wretchedness by her sneers, and Job might well 
have breathed Wordsworth's sigh : 

" The good die first, and they whose hearts 
Are dry as summer dust, 
Burn to the socket." 

But this rich and rare cluster of miseries was not yet com- 
plete. To cap the climax, disease must be added. " I can 
endure any misfortune," many a man says, "if only I have my 
health." This boon was denied Job. Leprosy attacked him, 
and that in its worst form, elephantiasis. His ailment was both 
painful and loathsome. His limbs swelled to monstrous propor- 
tions. His skin became hard, rough and tuberculate, so as to 
resemble an elephant's hide. First came hideous sores, and 
then, unless the malady was stayed, the finger-joints and limbs 
even would slough off. Save from God's intervention, there was 
no hope until death came and set the prisoner free. 

It is thus that in the prologue of his poem, the author of the 
book of Job places before our eyes in concrete, graphic and 
colossal form, the righteous sufferer, and suggests the profound 
enigma ; Why does sorrow upon sorrow submerge the innocent ? 
In this way (t he makes palpable," as Renan has it, " the mys- 
teries which one feels within one's own heart, and to which one 
has been painfully endeavoring to give tangible shape." 

There are, indeed, many saccharine elements in human life. 

1 ' The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil 
Betwixt our senses and our sorrows keeps ; 
Has sown with cloudless passages the tale of grief, 
And eased us with a thousand sleeps." 

It is a peculiarity of human nature to pass over our mercies 
unobserved, and, on the other hand, to remark and to exag- 



Lesson IV.] JOB'S CONFESSSION AND RESTORATION. 1 53 

gerate every trouble and pain. All our commonest physical 
experiences, as breathing, eating, drinking, falling asleep, are 
accompanied by pleasures which, like snow-flakes, fall silently 
and unobtrusively into our lives. Such pleasant sensations 
are taken as a matter of course, and do not arrest our attention. 
Trouble, on the contrary, makes a deep dent in our conscious- 
ness. In this way life seems to many of us sadder than it really 
is. But back of all this there still remains the hard, angular 
fact of the suffering inflicted upon the undeserving, and causing 
many of our best minds to doubt either the power or the 
benevolence of the Christian's God. The pains endured by 
the lower animals with uncomplaining patience, the fears that 
haunt the steps of childhood, the rigors inflicted upon their 
tender offspring by improvident and cruel parents, the hidden 
sorrows of the 

" Hearts that break and give no sign 
Save fading lips and whitening tresses," 

the vast accumulation of sordid miseries that would be unfolded 
before our eyes if all the opaque brick walls of our tenement- 
houses were suddenly to become transparent, — these are only a 
small part of that great problem of evil with which the Book of 
Job has to do, setting all our best literature to a minor key, as 
when it extorts from the lips of Byron the pathetic line, 

" Smiles form the channel for the future tear." 

II. We have seen that in these first three chapters, which 
constitutes the prologue of his poem, our author offers a con- 
crete statement of the problem of suffering. This is worth a 
great deal. If we can once fairly state a problem and let its 
difficulty assume in our minds definite outlines, we are on the 
way to a solution of it. But the author of Job is not content 
with a strong and impartial presentation of the mystery of evil, 
he makes an attempt to solve it. The prologue is there- 
fore followed by a long and stormy dialogue between Job ; the 



154 JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. [Second Quarter. 

righteous sufferer, and three sages, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, 
who endeavor to comfort him. This dialogue occupies chap- 
ters iv-xxxi. Job's friends account for suffering on the score 
of retributive justice. They represent the orthodox church of 
the poet's age. Suffering, they say, is graduated to sin. Pain 
follows transgression as the cart-wheel follows the ox. The 
bad man is sure to suffer, and the good man to be happy. If 
a man is in trouble, we can safely say that he has done wrong. 
So they keep reiterating, " Come, Job, own up. You have been 
on the sly a great sinner, or else you would not be such a great 
sufferer." Their speeches weary us with their monotony and 
repetition. As they go on they harp more and more vehe- 
mently on the same old string, while poor Job complains 
bitterly of his sufferings, denies their charges and insinuations, 
and holds fast to his integrity. But while his opponents 
become more heated as the discussion proceeds, Job grows 
calmer. Like one who climbs a dark and difficult mountain, he 
once in a while emerges upon a sunlit eminence. As in that 
noble passage, woven by the church of England into her 
majestic burial service, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," 
he voices the expectation, not that prosperity will come back, 
not even that justice will be done him in this life, but that a 
glorious posthumous vindication will be his portion. His 
Defender or Avenger will assuredly some day appear upon this 
earth, and dreadfully rebuke those who now too readily chide 
him. He almost arrives at the hope expressed in Bryant's 
exquisite hymn : 

" Nor let the good man's trust depart, 
Though life its common gifts deny ; 
Though, with a pierced and broken heart, 
And spurned of men, he goes to die " 

" For God has marked each sorrowing day, 
And numbered every secret tear, 
And Heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 
For all his children suffer here-" 



Lesson IV.] JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. 155 

III. Having stated the enigma in his prologue, and having 
in the dialogue between Job and his three friends, as an 
inadequate solution, suggested the principle of retributive jus- 
tice, our author introduces a new character, Elihu, who in a 
monologue, which occupies chapters xxxii-xxxvii, brings for- 
ward the thought of the disciplinary character of suffering. In 
pain is heard the voice of God. But he openeth the ears of 
men ; he sealeth their instruction ; he withdraws man from 
wrong purposes ; he hides pride from man ; he gives songs in the 
night ; he teaches us more than the beasts of the earth can 
learn. Who teacheth like him? The sufferer should meekly 
respond : " I have born chastisement, I will not offend any 
more ; that which I see not, teach thou me; if I have done 
iniquity I will do so no more." 

We have in Elihu's discourse a glimmer of the truth so 
familiar to Christians : " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." 
Every branch that beareth fruit, he pruneth it, that it may bring 
forth more fruit. The fruitful branch it is worth while for the 
wise gardener to pay attention to, and to cultivate even with 
the keen pruning-knife. As I heard a musical director of rare 
artistic insight say to his choir, " The better you sing the 
more fault I will find with you." 

Suffering quickens our moral perceptions, toughens our 
spiritual fibre, develops within us the capacity to soothe and 
sympathize, makes us more Christ-like. As delicate calicoes 
are passed rapidly and deftly over hot rollers, so that the fuzz 
may be scorched away and the pattern become clearer and 
more conspicuous, so the spirits of God's people are exposed 
to sufferings, that worldliness may be burned off and the image 
of Christ brought strongly out. This truth, suggested by Elihu, 
is so much in advance of the rest of the book that it seems 
almost an anachronism, and hence is supposed by some schol- 
ars to have been added to the poem by a later hand. 

IV, Elihu'§ monologue is followed by a dialogue between 



156 JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. [Second Quarter. 

Job and the Almighty. This begins with chapter xxxviii, and 
ends with the sixth verse of chapter xlii. It contains a sublime 
description of God's power as manifested in the creation of the 
universe, the earth, the sea, the constellations, the light, the 
rain, the snow, the wild goat, the wild ox, the eagle, the horse, 
the hippopotamus, and the crocodile. The passage suggests a 
spirit of reverent agnosticism. It contains no intellectual solu- 
tion of the great mystery ; no theodicy ; but it suggests, with- 
out working out, a solution for the honest heart, far better for 
men's practical use than all the formal theodicies which men 
have so laboriously written. The problem of evil transcends 
finite intelligence. We are a small part of a very large plan, 
and our sufferings are mysteriously required in the rounding 
out of the divine purpose. We are wrong in placing ourselves 
at the centre of the universe, and in expecting to fathom its 
mysteries by reasoning out from the relations which things bear 
to us. From the finite standpoint all seems confused and 
chaotic, just as the mosaic in St. Peter's dome, when seen near 
at hand, looks ugly and meaningless. " This world," according 
to Longfellow, " is but the negative of the world to come, and 
what is dark here will be light hereafter." President Dodge's 
words, inscribed on his tomb, are the best commentary on Job : 
" The soul is the enigma ; God is the solution." 

V. The epilogue of the book, embracing the last eleven 
verses of the closing chapter, describes the return of happiness 
to Job. The Lord rebukes the three sages for their harsh 
judgments. They ask Job's forgiveness and Job prays for 
them. The Lord turns his captivity. His wealth is restored 
to him twofold. He has again seven sons and three beautiful 
daughters, and he lives to a good old age, surrounded by his 
kindred, friends and acquaintances. 

This is not mere poetic justice. The great truth is suggested 
that character is the parent of comfort. There is such a prin- 
ciple at work in human life. The Psalmist sings : Trust in 



tBSSON IV,] JOB'S CONFESSION AND RESTORATION. 



*57 



the Lord, and do good ; so shall thou dwell in the land, and 
verily thou shalt be fed. And again, I have been young and 
now am old ; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his 
seed begging bread. Christ says : Seek ye first the kingdom 
of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be 
added unto you. This broad principle is operating all the 
time in human life. But the individual career is sometimes too 
short to enable it to work itself completely out. Its operation 
is more clearly visible in the history of the family, the state, or 
the nation. 

To the individual man there seems often to be left only the 
consciousness of his integrity and the hope of Heaven. After 
all, these Old Testament guesses point to Christ, who brought 
life and immortality to light. In him we reach the solution of 
earth's darkest enigmas. Through simple faith in his resur- 
rection, we learn to wait in patience for the explanation of 
life beyond the grave, and to entertain the hope that breathes 
in Tennyson's lines : 

" Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

" That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That no one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete ; 

' ' That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivel' d in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

" Behold, we know not anything ; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off— at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring." 



lessoi} I/, ppril 30. 



WISDOM'S WARNING. 

Proverbs i: 20-33. 

By Rev. B. A. GREENE, Lynn, Mass. 

EVERY nation has its proverbs. Whether it possesses an 
elaborated philosophy or not, there will always be found 
current among any people, short, pithy sentences, sum- 
ming up the experience and observation of generations. They 
are partly the sayings of sages, partly expressions born out of 
the ripened intelligence of the common people. According to 
old Howell, they are marked by "sense, shortness and salt." 

The wisdom of all the ancient and of all the oriental peoples 
partakes largely of the proverbial type. The deep, perplexing 
problems of life called of old for solution as loudly as now. 
Men then gave close observation and showed keen insight, but 
they did not have the extended view and logical grasp of later 
times. They saw things in the concrete and spake in senten- 
tious forms. The proverbs of a people note the high water 
mark of its intellectual and moral enlightenment. 

The Book of Proverbs, from which our lesson is taken, was 
a growth. To it were gathered, from time to time, the accu- 
mulating maxims of the generations. David did not write all 
the Psalms ; Solomon did not write all the Proverbs ; but each 
of these authors is typical and pre-eminent in his sphere. 

The theme of the Book of Proverbs is wisdom. In Hebrew 
literature, the book is to be grouped with Ecclesiastes and Job ; 
while the theme, wisdom, is regarded as belonging to a trinity : 



tESSON V.j WISDOM'S WARNING. 1$9 

the law, prophecy, wisdom. The law was first, preparing the 
soil of the human mind with theistic and monotheistic concep- 
tions, giving "the commandments and claims of Jehovah." 
Prophecy was a progressive interpretation of God's will, as it 
was unfolded in the life of the people through judgments and 
increasingly clear disclosure of his purposes. Wisdom was a 
resultant growth of thought, which, in time, came to assume the 
character of a Hebrew philosophy. 

I. Who is the Wisdom represented as uttering the words of 
the lesson? 

Manifestly, it is the highest Hebrew wisdom personified. 
This is exactly according to the oriental manner of speaking. 
Indeed, we ourselves practice it ; we represent religion, phil- 
osophy, art, statesmanship, each, as lifting up a voice and 
calling upon man to look above the material, the low, the 
temporal, the selfish and the narrow. It is natural to personify. 

Wisdom here, as also in the ninth chapter, where it is pictured 
as building its temple of seven pillars, is grammatically in the 
plural number, " wisdoms." This fact may refer to its superior 
excellency, but it more probably shows, as Oehler remarks, 
"that the Divine Wisdom includes all kinds of wisdom, and 
therefore especially the moral forces by which human life is 
directed." Wisdom is undoubtedly intended to be understood 
as the mouthpiece through which the wisest known judgments 
of men shall find deliverance as to special phases of private, 
domestic, social, business and public conduct. 

It should be carefully noticed that the wisdom we are con- 
sidering is not a kind of retiring, meditative philosophy. She 
does not have in mind the few, the elect. She goes into the 
broad thoroughfares, lifting up loudly her voice of warning and 
instruction. " In the wide streets," amid the thronging multi- 
tudes, " at the head of the bustling places " where business is 
transacted, " at the openings of the gates " where tribunals meet 
and public questions are discussed ; yes, throughout the city at 



160 Wisdom's warning. tSEcoND QuAatefc, 

large as well as in these prominent places^ she makes her 
proclamation and utters her fitting words. What can be 
intended here if not the wisdom of "all the wise men and 
teachers and prophets/' pointing out to their brethren the way 
of duty, privilege and life? 

If it be asked what the sources of this wisdom were, the 
reply is that they were the experience, observation and insight, 
which came to richly endowed men walking in the light of a 
revealed personal God. 

The beginning, the very alphabet of this wisdom is the fear 
of the personal God who has revealed himself as Jehovah. In 
response to such reverential recognition, God said to Solomon : 
" Lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart." 
While Solomon had penetrating discernment in a pre-eminent 
degree, it is true also that " there is a Spirit in man as man, and 
the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding." 
Wherever it possesses thoughtfulness and reverence, " the spirit 
of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the innermost." 

But not altogether from this spiritual intuition, by itself con- 
sidered, is Wisdom able to speak. It is evident that a large 
portion of her utterances come from such intuition as reacting 
on men's experience and observation. Elihu was right in say- 
ing that " Days should speak, and multitude of years should 
teach wisdom." Youth is advised to attend to the instruction 
of a father, and forsake not the teaching of a mother. Inexpe- 
rience is to sit at the feet of experience. The gem pictures in 
the Book of Proverbs are so realistic as to prove that the mate- 
rials for this ethical sketching were given by views of actual life. 

Let us turn now to the message which Wisdom brings. It is 
a message of warning, but it is also the message of a friend. 
Neither the severe nor the final word is pronounced at once. 
Consider, therefore : 

II. Wisdom's reproof tempered with the kindness of gracious 
promises. 



Lesson V.] WISDOM'S WARNING. 1 6 1 

At first the warning is implied rather than expressed : " How 
long will ye love simplicity? . . . Turn ye at my reproof, 
and I will pour out my spirit upon you." The reproof con- 
sists in calling things by their right names. To name an act is, 
sometimes, its sufficient condemnation. How often is the soul 
gradually drawn into a sin which is progressively blinding the 
eyes to its real nature and outcome. A young man enters city 
life. Its novelty fascinates him. He comes into contact with 
practices which he was once taught to abominate ; but, some- 
way, in the glamour of the new environment, they do not seem 
so very bad. He yields to the fascination. By and by, if he 
is fortunate, he is awakened by some friend who, not mincing 
matters, gives the right name to the downward course he is pur- 
suing : " You are in the path which drunkards tread ; your 
feet are perilously near the harlot's door. Turn from these 
ways or you are lost." Would not that be the voice of Wisdom 
to-day as truly as in ancient times ? 

Wisdom addresses her words to the " simple," those who are 
blinded by sin and so lack moral discernment ; to the " scorner," 
him who speaks slightingly of truth and virtue, making sport of 
that which should command his most serious attention ; to the 
" fools," those who have reached a state of almost total insen- 
sibility and obduracy touching moral things. It is thus seen 
that attention is called to the natural progressiveness of sin as 
well as to its intrinsic character. As all these dupes belong to 
one class, Wisdom has reproof alike for each of them. 

Wisdom appeals to their moral self-respect. There must be 
• a spark of it left. She will give them credit for that. " How 
long will ye love simplicity?" In your heart of hearts you know 
that it is wrong. Oh, turn, turn ! I speak words of reproof, 
but behold ! if you give heed to my voice, I will cause my 
spirit to gush forth upon you : you shall feel a mighty energiz- 
ing influence working helpfully in your souls. I will make you 
to know my words. Now they may appear empty or for- 



1 62 WISDOM'S WARNING. [Second Quarter. 

bidding, but if you turn, they shall flash forth new, rich mean- 
ings of blessing. 

Would that we were not called to press on into the darker 
portion of Wisdom's message. Why may not Wisdom, having 
spoken so plainly, so tenderly, stop there ? Will not man rec- 
ognize kindness when it is shown him ? Will he not give heed 
to the voice of Wisdom when he cannot mistake it ? Facts say 
no. Some men, multitudes, rush on in their ways of selfish 
delight in spite of all such reproof. Then there is nothing left 
for Wisdom but to lift up a sterner voice, charge the tone of it 
with a ring of finality, overtake men further on in their mad 
careers and shout in their ears with a prophet's indignation 
startling lessons from the Book of Doom. And so we are com- 
pelled to consider : 

III. Wisdom's portrayal of the irretrievable calamity await- 
ing the persistently disobedient. 

Two phases of the calamity are depicted : one in which Wis- 
dom is represented as being deaf to all calls for deliverance, 
and giving expression to the " highest and most contemptuous 
indignation ; " the other, in which their punishment is set forth 
as due to the working out of relentless natural law. 

"Because I have called and ye refused." Wisdom has been 
speaking for a long time, and in the face of repeated refusal, 
lifting her voice louder and louder. She has repeated her 
invitation through months and years. And her words have not 
been the unfeeling utterance of official tutorship. She adds, 
" I have stretched out my hand ;" I have besought you with all 
tenderness and compassion. No pains have been spared on 
the part of teacher and prophet ; no forms of appeal have been 
overlooked by the yearning heart of father and mother. Wis- 
dom, the wisest and best of all that can be uttered, is personi- 
fied and made to appear before man in the attitude of kindliest 
entreaty. We, in these days, have no need of personification ; 
in the person of Jesus Christ, we have the actual incarnation 



Lesson V.] WISDOM'S WARNING. 1 63 

of wisdom, and blending with it the divinest of love. " Come 
unto me, " he says, " all ye that are weary and heavy laden and 
I will give you rest." 

Because of all this, inasmuch as you have persistently refused 
and would not listen, since you are resolved to have your own 
way, roughly pushing aside all that is dearest and best, the end 
is drawing nigh, doom's day is approaching. And I, even I, 
who have so lovingly called you, will stand one side and let 
what you have to fear come upon you as a destructive tempest. 
I will no longer protect you, no longer interfere when your 
calamity sweeps down upon you as a whirlwind. I, who have 
spoken, entreated and urged, who have dinned your ears day 
by day with my sorrowful pleading, even I shall then be com- 
pelled " to treat you as enemies who deserve contempt ;" your 
overthrow will be as complete as when a besieged city rallies 
and puts to rout the loud-boasting and sneering soldiery of the 
besieging hosts. Then laughter and triumphant rejoicing is on 
the other side. The city that was to be the spoil, the helpless 
prey of feelingless, bloodthirsty invaders still stands, intact, calm, 
and serene, looking down in triumph upon the field of her 
enemy's disaster. It was undoubtedly through some such 
imagery as this that the strong language " I will laugh at your 
calamity and mock when your fear cometh " found its way into 
the mouth of Wisdom. The intention is that the actual fact of 
impending doom, and the terribleness of the final overthrow, 
sure to come, shall be made to reflect back fame and glory upon 
the Wisdom who predicts. In the second Psalm the same 
thought is found. When kings, rulers, and the wicked, even all 
the strong men of the earth, set themselves against the Lord's 
anointed, " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh : the 
Lord shall have them in derision." A time is coming when the 
scoffer and the scorner shall reach their limit, and when judg- 
ment shall begin. Alas ! to all the wicked a time will come as 
it did to the city of Jerusalem, the beloved capital of God's 



164 WISDOM'S WARNING. [Second Quarter. 

privileged people, when even a tender-hearted Jesus, One wil- 
ling to be crucified for his enemies, shall be compelled to say : 
'"' Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." 

How often does it happen when men unskilled yet foolishly 
venturesome thrust their vessel out into a stormy sea along a 
rocky coast, being presumptuous in the face of kindest warning, 
and sneeringly offering to take their chances, that the following 
morning dawns bright and fair, the sunshine smiles, and the 
waves clap their hands, in the very presence of a stranded 
wreck and of lifeless forms upon the shore ! Go to nature, 
thou sneering, scoffing dupe : consider her ways and be wise. 

Wisdom also declares that the time of entreaty and of choice 
will at length be past. " They shall call upon me, but I will 
not answer ; they shall earnestly seek me, but they shall not 
find me." Do these words seem harsh and forbidding? They 
are indeed terrible ; but they are as clear and unmistakable as 
any words that Wisdom has ever spoken. 

What does warning mean if there is no danger actually 
ahead? Is the holy, wise and powerful God like a foolish, 
over-indulgent father who often threatens and never intends to 
punish? Is the day of judgment a fiction of the imagination? 
According to Isaiah, iniquity, persisted in, will separate between 
man and God, will make God hide his face that he will not 
hear. We find such words as these in the very heart of the 
Gospel : " When once the master of the house is risen up and 
hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to 
knock at the door saying, Lord, open unto us ; he shall answer 
and say, I know you not — depart from me all ye workers of 
iniquity." We are not to modify or tone down what we are 
pleased to call the early, crude harshness of the Old Testament 
religion, to make it comport with an over-tender interpretation 
of the New Testament. Both Testaments are thoroughly 
agreed in the two-fold teaching of their wisdom. Their uni- 
versal testimony echoes and re-echoes down through all the 



Lesson V.] 



WISDOM S WARNING. 



65 



ages, to the effect that moral character persisted in fixes itself 
in evil if it is evil as inevitably as in good if it is good. The 
truth is not that a genuinely penitent cry for help would then 
be inefficacious, but that sin will so harden its subject that real 
penitence will never come. The cry which will be refused will 
be no penitent but a selfish cry. 

The disobedient man himself, in his heart of hearts, has a 
premonition of this impending doom. " When your fear 
cometh," that is, when that which you feared breaks upon you. 
There is in the soul of sinful man in startling flashes if not in 
an uninterrupted daylight of conviction, " a certain fearful look- 
ing-for of judgment and fiery indignation." One and the same 
God who inspired the teachings of Scripture has ordained 
nature to her service of parabolic instruction and inwrought in 
the moral structure of man laws in accordance with which "the 
invisible things of the world are clearly seen, even his eternal 
power and Godhead." 

In all this warning of Wisdom there is nothing arbitrary, 
sudden, the result of an indignant afterthought. Sin's destiny 
is part and parcel of the world's universal justice. So, Wisdom 
still further emphasizes her warning by adding, as a second 
consideration, that the scorner's punishment will be due to the 
working of relentless natural law. "Because they have hated 
knowledge and despised all my reproof, therefore shall they eat 
of the fruit of their own way." What the farmer plants in 
springtime and cultivates in summer, that, in kind, and that 
alone, may he gather in autumn. If there are inexorable laws 
in the universe this is one of them. In the first chapter of 
Genesis everything was created to be " after its kind." This 
stands among the foremost laws of the natural world. And as 
we read on into the body of Bible history we find this " Natural 
Law in the Spiritual World" also, and as much at home as it is 
in nature herself. In the last chapter of Revelation are pictured 
two kinds of life ; the blessed, belonging to those who do God's 



1 66 WISDOM'S WARNING. [Second Quarter. 

commandments and have right to the tree of life ; and that of 
such as are unjust, filthy, idolaters, lovers and makers of lies. 
Two kinds of moral estate at last : each old probationer in his 
own place. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 
Sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind ; sow to the flesh and 
reap corruption. 

Wisdom is not content simply to state spiritual consequences 
in the language of natural law. She would make specifically 
clear the issue of the punishment out of the wrong-doer's own 
acts. "They shall be satiated with their own counsels and 
devices." If evil men are determined to have their way and 
live after their own desires, they shall be satisfied to the full. 
" Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness." When 
the Almighty leaves scoffers to their own devices, distress and 
anguish are not far away. What else can a man expect who 
has run his course of riot till his flesh mortifies, and poured 
alcohol into his blood till it would ignite if exposed to a lighted 
match ! What more terrible punishment can we imagine than 
for a corrupt man to be given over to his own evil ! 

One of the most vivid pictures in my memory is that of the 
wreck of a man in a poor-house. He had prospered in busi- 
ness, had hosts of friends, occupied a high place in society, 
had a beautiful wife. In the midst of his prosperity he, as a 
town officer, selected a site for the poor-house and fitted it up 
for occupancy, little knowing that it was destined to shelter his 
own last days on earth. He was tempted and fell. He 
deserted his wife for a mistress, fled the town, and revelled in 
his sin and in speculation for a few years. The mistress was 
brought back a maniac. A little later the man returned, well- 
nigh helpless with paralysis, and utterly penniless, to spend his 
few remaining months as an inmate of that poor-house, and 
one of its most abject and miserable occupants. That man 
was simply " filled with his own devices." 



lessor? l/l. fllay 7. 



THE VALUE OF WISDOM. 

Proverbs Hi : 11-24. 

By Rev. Professor JOHN R. SAMPEY, D. D., Louisyiixe, £y 

WHAT is wisdom ? Let us at the outset carefully con- 
sider the import of this most exalted term. There 
is in it no hint of evil, no suggestion of weakness. 
By it we are lifted to the loftiest plane of human attainment, 
and from this height we look upward to the perfection of the 
divine nature; for "wisdom" is not only connected with the 
most exalted achievements of the human spirit, but includes 
the most sublime processes of the divine mind. 

But what, in particular, does the inspired penman mean by 
wisdom ? Is it in his mind identical with shrewdness, sagacity, 
brilliancy? From these terms it takes what is good, and rejects 
what is bad, being far more comprehensive than either or all of 
them ; for while these words suggest the wisdom of the serpent, 
they exclude the innocence of the dove. Is wisdom synony- 
mous with discretion, good judgment, common sense? It has 
much in common with these lofty terms, extracting from each 
all its strength and sweetness. A more important and funda- 
mental inquiry still remains. Is wisdom related to righteousness, 
purity, piety? According to the Book of Proverbs, there can 
be no true wisdom apart from religion. "The fear of the Lord 
is the beginning of wisdom." The confirmed atheist is a fool. 
A recognition of God's existence lies at the basis of all right 



1 68 THE VALUE OF WISDOM. [Second Quarter. 

thinking and correct conduct. This may not be the prevailing 
opinion now, but it certainly was the thought of the sage who 
gave to his contemporaries three thousand proverbs. 

Let us bear in mind then that there is a moral and spiritual 
as well as an intellectual element in the wisdom of which our 
text treats. We might with propriety, in certain verses, substi- 
tute piety for wisdom. 

The text emphasizes the value of wisdom by six consider- 
ations. 

I. Though piety does not deliver us from all disappointment 
and pain, yet it transmutes punishment into loving fatherly 
correction (vv. n, 12). 

There is a great gulf between the punishment of a rebel and 
the chastisement of a son. One is an act of vengeance, the 
other is prompted by love. What a blessed privilege for the 
Christian to be assured that his stripes are for his own profit, 
that he may become more like his Heavenly Father. Let this 
commonplace of christian thought be ever fresh to us. " The 
fining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord 
trieth the hearts." We may rest assured that his divine alchemy 
will achieve the best results. Even when the furnace is at its 
hottest, let us have courage and stand the test, remembering 
the words of the wise, " If thou faint in the day of adversity, 
thy strength is small." Afflictions, by making our hearts tender 
and trustful, may become a most gratifying evidence of our 
sonship. The realitv of our communion with God, the certainty 
that he has heard us and helped us, the sweet peace that follows 
upon submission — these personal experiences become to us the 
strongest evidence of our acceptance with God. When we 
think of the blessed fruits of affliction, we are almost prepared 
to carry out the Apostle's command to count it all joy when 
we fall into divers temptations. If wisdom does not wholly 
banish pain, she graciously converts the bitter enemy into a 
helpful friend. 






Lesson VI.] 



THE VALUE OF WISDOM. 



169 



II. Wisdom without wealth is of more value than wealth 
without wisdom (vv. 13, 15). 

May not the superiority of wisdom over wealth, as here set 
forth, remind us of the dream of Solomon at the beginning of 
his reign? His first and sole request of Jehovah was for wisdom 
in ruling the chosen people, but God added to him riches and 
honor. No man ever put a higher estimate on wisdom than 
did Solomon. All the more do we marvel at his lapse into folly 
and sin. 

But how many of the young people of our day would choose 
wisdom in preference to wealth ? Is it not an accepted doctrine 
in many quarters that money will atone for the lack of every- 
thing else? "Put money in thy purse." "Wealth is the 
principal thing, therefore get wealth ; and with all thy getting, 
get rich." Even those who preach against avarice often show 
a keen appreciation of the worth of money. Now it is useless 
to attack money. Let us rather emphasize the value of char- 
acter, of a pious and holy life. When we employ gold and 
rubies as a standard of value, we grant to them by that very 
use a value of their own. But we may show to the young the 
supreme excellence of piety. 



"Better is a little with the fear of Jehovah, 
Than great treasure and trouble therewith." 

III. True wisdom leads to health, wealth and happiness 
(vv. 16, 18). 

We are not shut up to the alternative of choosing between 
happiness and wisdom, for if we follow in wisdom's ways, all 
these things shall be added unto us. If we set our hearts on 
pleasure as the chief good, she will coquette with us, always 
eluding our grasp, while wisdom waits for our embraces, being 
richly able to crown us with chaplets of glory. 

Let us inquire more carefully into the correctness of this 
central proof of the supreme value of wisdom. Is it true that 



1 7<3 THfc VaLTJE OF WISDOM . t Second Quarter. 

to live wisely means to live long? Does piety lengthen one's 
days? Ask the insurance companies. Why do they besiege 
preachers and teachers, while they shun the frequenters of the 
bar-room and the brothel? These latter are living for pleasure 
only, and earnestly wish to live a long time. Yet the facts all 
go to show that their lives of folly will subtract largely from the 
numbers some day to be placed on the slabs, marking their 
graves. A life of piety, other things being equal, will be longer 
than a life of sin. The healthiest persons are those who keep 
all God's laws — those which regulate the mind and soul, as well 
as those which govern the body. Oh, for good health, that we 
may be strong to do the will of God ! 

But what shall we say of wealth ? " In her left hand are 
riches and honor." A wise man is industrious and frugal, and 
therefore secures the respect of his neighbors. He is honest, 
and thereby secures their confidence. For such a man the 
door to success stands open. 

The Bible emphasizes the importance of cultivating those 
traits and habits which tend to the steady accumulation of 
property. It may be safely said that the young man who will 
take as his business manual the Book of Proverbs, will achieve 
success in life, if only he has any natural ability to begin with. 
The only permanent success comes along the path of industry, 
honesty and frugality. The gambler or the man who employs 
the tricks of trade can never purchase a good conscience or the 
favor of God. The wealth which is most enjoyed and most 
wisely employed, is that which flows through channels approved 
by the Word of God. " Honesty is the best policy," but it is 
neither pious nor politic to obey the Scriptures as a mere matter 
of policy. 

" Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace." 

The devil tries to make every new generation believe that 
piety is the dullest, most stupid and intolerable thing in exist- 



t^ssoN Vt] TfrE VALUfe OF WISDOM. 1^1 

ence. He arrays against it the good cheer and gaiety of youth. 
He insists that the necessary alternative is to choose a dry, 
morose, impossible something called Christianity, or to give up 
one's self without restraint to the pleasures of this life. But let 
us keep prominent before the world for all time the fact that 
the happiest persons on earth are those who are most fit for 
heaven. Religion makes one happier by ridding him of all 
anxiety as to his future well-being, by sweetening all his sorrows, 
by deepening all his joys, and by opening to him new and 
blessed experiences which no unbeliever can share. Holiness 
and happiness are 'joined together in a heavenly union. 

IV. The possession of wisdom links man with God, who, by 
wisdom, created and ever sustains the universe (vv. 19, 20). 

It is in his mental and spiritual nature that man shows the 
image of his Maker. The divine Architect planned and built 
the heavens and the earth with consummate skill, and wherever 
man attains the noblest ends by the wisest means, he shows his 
kinship with the Creator. A feeble reflection of the divine 
Wisdom is still found among men, and it should be our constant 
aim to improve our minds by all healthy educational processes, 
and to discipline our spiritual natures by the use of the means 
appointed by God. 

The poem which we are studying contains a very beautiful 
passage, in which Wisdom is represented as pressing upon men 
her claims by a description of her joyous existence with Jeho- 
vah before the creation of the world. The personification is 
of such rare beauty and power that we cannot refrain from 
quoting it, as translated by Professor Conant : 

"Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his 
works of old. 

From everlasting was I anointed, from the beginning, from 
times before the earth. 

When there were no deeps, I was brought forth ; when there 
were no fountains abounding in water. 



172 THE VALUE OF WISDOM [Second Ouarte^: 

Bre yet the mountains were sunken ; before the hills was I 
brought forth. 

While yet he had not made the earth nor the fields, nor the first 
clods of the habitable world. 

When he founded the heavens, I was there ; when he traced a 
circle on the face of the deep ; when he established the clouds 
above ; when the fountains of the deep became strong ; when he 
gave to the sea its bound, that the waters should not pass his 
command ; when he appointed the foundations of the earth ; and 
I was one brought up at his side ; and was day by day a delight, 
sporting always before him ; sporting in his habitable earth, and 
my delight was with the sons of men." 

How full of joy is Wisdom in the presence of Jehovah ! She 
is a playful child, happy in the Creator's smile, taking delight in 
the works of his hand, and feeling a peculiar interest in the 
sons of men. We cannot help thinking of the mystery of the 
God-head, and of the Divine Wisdom who became incarnate 
for the purpose of restoring the fallen sons of men to their origi- 
nal purity and bliss. But for the development of the poet's 
argument, let us remember that Wisdom is of supreme excel- 
lence because she connects man with God, being the friend and 
servant of both. 

V. True wisdom is not only life to the soul, but an ornament 
to the person (vv. 21, 22). 

How often does the author picture wisdom as a tree of life ! 
Shut out as man is from Eden, he may yet partake of this tree 
of life. His soul cannot die, if wisdom dwell therein. 

But Wisdom is not merely useful, she is also ornamental. 
She is beautiful in herself, and will add new attraction to the 
soul that retains her. 

In the East ornaments are prized even more highly than in 
our own country. They are placed on all parts of the body 
that are exposed to view. What a rich necklace does wisdom 
make ! Here is no cheap or gaudy toy, but an adornment cor- 
responding to the meek and quiet spirit which the Apostle 



Lesson VI.] THE VALUE OF WISDOM. 1 73 

recommends to the christian women of a later day. Let us all 
seek to be beautiful in person, in speech, in action. Wisdom 
can teach us the secret. 

VI. The value of wisdom is next shown by two pictures of 
security (vv. 23, 24). 

Traveling has always been attended with more or less of dan- 
ger. Even in our own time, when the comfort and safety of 
travel have been wonderfully improved, we still have fearful 
accidents on land and on sea. Probably journeys through 
mountainous districts have been attended with more of danger 
than any other kind of travel. In Palestine robbers have from 
the earliest times infested the dens and caves west of the Dead 
Sea and the Jordan valley. Besides, there is the constant dan- 
ger that comes from poor roads through a hilly, broken country. 
Narrow paths border on yawning chasms, where to stumble is 
to be lost. 

The orators and poets of the Bible are fond of depicting 
danger under the figure of stumbling. It is well for us to 
remember how full of meaning the image is. But if Wisdom is 
our guide, we shall go safely through steep and slippery defiles, 
and Jehovah will keep our feet from being taken. Think, 
christian mother, of the pitfalls that encompass your boy in the 
midst of life's fierce competition, and pray God to give him an 
understanding heart. Pray that your daughter, whether she be 
in ease or one of life's toilers, may be a woman of knowledge 
and discretion. O young man, let the command in the golden 
text become your rule of life. " Trust in Jehovah with all thy 
heart, and lean not on thine own understanding." Then you 
can journey through trying places with perfect safety. 

The second picture of the wise man represents him as sweetly 
sleeping after the labors of the day. He is not wrapped in the 
heavy slumber of the sluggard on a poorly kept bed, nor is he 
nervously clutching his purse like the gambler or the con- 
scienceless speculator, but he sleeps sweetly like an infant ; his 



1 74 THE VALUE OF WISDOM. [Second Quarter. 

mind at peace with God and men, and his conscience at 
rest. 

It would be evident from these pictures of security and peace, 
even if there were no other proof, that wisdom in the Book of 
Proverbs includes piety. The wise man is the godly man. He 
displays the highest knowledge who best obeys the will of God. 
No beginning in sound philosophy can be made without faith 
and obedience to God. Religion is neither impracticable nor 
impractical. It is the first thing and the last. 

Shall we not take away with us two practical lessons ? 

i. Judged by the standard commonly accepted even among 
the irreligious, piety yields larger returns than impiety, so that 
the impartial judge must pronounce piety to be wisdom, and 
impiety to be folly. 

Compare godliness and lawlessness as to the improvement of 
health, the amassing and employment of wealth, the comforts 
of home — in a word, let us take happiness as the standard, and 
inquire in the light of universal experience, whether the pleas- 
ures of piety do not exceed those of sin. I verily believe that 
they do. " Godliness is profitable for all things, having prom- 
ise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come." It 
is all a delusion of the devil to think that God robs his people 
of all joy until they get within the pearly gates. We do not 
forget the cross, or the losses, or the persecutions, which every 
true Christian must bear, but we remember the sweet consola- 
tions that take away the bitterness from our afflictions, and we 
also think of the keen pangs that pierce the sinner's heart, and 
the thorns that infest his pillow. Even the earthly rewards of 
piety commend it as of more value than a selfish life. Hence 
the Old Testament saints, who lived before the coming of God's 
Son to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel, 
bravely resisted the assaults of the tempter, being confident 
that it was the part of wisdom to fear and serve the living 
God. They had glimpses of immortality, but they were not 






Lesson VI.] 



THE VALUE OF WISDOM. 



175 



constantly sustained by the glorious thought that the rewards 
of heaven would atone a thousand times over for the priva- 
tions of earth. 

2. Let us thank God that we have now other motives, 
mightier still, for leading a life of righteousness. The love of 
Christ and the rewards of Heaven draw us away from sin with 
cords that can never snap. How can anyone be so foolish as 
to continue in sin? No longer does wisdom, merely as a 
beautiful abstraction, invite men to a life of holiness, but the 
Son of Man, the living Embodiment of wisdom, with pierced 
hands and feet, pleads with us to be reconciled to God. He 
knocks at our doors, bringing an urgent invitation to the 
heavenly feast. Is it wise to turn him away? 



[essoi? l/II. fl)ay 14. 



FRUITS OF WISDOM. 

Proverbs xii: 1-15. 

By H. C. VEDDER, New York, N. Y. 

CHARACTER is not a creation but a growth. The 
christian life begins with the new birth, but no more 
spiritually than physically are we born in the full stature 
of a man. Growth of character, like growth of sinew, is always 
a slow and often a painful process, demanding daily exercise, 
proper nutrition and patient continuance in well-doing. The 
fruits of wisdom are not to be gathered at will ; they are of slow 
growth, and ripen only in the sunshine of God's grace. He 
who with impatient hand seeks to reap where he has not sown 
and to gather where he has not scattered, may fill his hands 
with leaves and chaff, or tear his flesh among thorns and bram- 
bles, but he will assuredly bring home nothing of value to him- 
self or others. Whoso would pluck wisdom's ripe fruit must be 
content to produce it according to the laws of the heavenly 
husbandry. Some of these laws are contained in the scripture 
that is now to be our meditation. 

At a hasty reading, these fifteen verses will no doubt seem to 
many a hap-hazard collection of sayings, more or less unintelli- 
gible as they stand in our common English version, with hardly 
a connecting link of thought. With study of the verses the 
difficulties lessen and finally vanish. We shall find in this 



Lesson VII.] 



FRUITS OF WISDOM. 



177 



scripture, if we look closely and somewhat re-arrange the order 
of the verses, a well reasoned, logically ordered, and aptly 
expressed lesson on the essential nature, the outward marks and 
the rewards of wisdom. Contrasted with these, the nature, 
manifestations and results of folly are described in stinging, 
caustic phrases. 

I. The essential nature of wisdom consists in a disposition 
of the heart. Our lesson begins and ends with the statement 
of this basal truth : " Whoso loveth correction loveth knowl- 
edge," and again, " He that is wise hearkeneth unto counsel." 
It is the same truth taught elsewhere in the Proverbs in the 
words, "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge." 
It is the fool who hath said in his heart, " No God ;" it is the 
fool who proves himself akin to the brutes by his hatred of 
reproof; whose folly is incorrigible because his way is ever 
right in his own eyes. The foundation of wisdom is reverence 
toward God, respect for God's law, readiness to be led by God's 
providence, to be chastened, disciplined, reproved, corrected. 
The wise man is perfected by this discipline, as a diamond is 
shaped and polished in the grinder's hand ; and though he 
finds his chastening for the present not joyous but grievous, in 
the end it bringeth forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. 
But the fool learns nothing from such experience ; though he 
were brayed in a mortar with the wheat, says the Wise Man 
elsewhere, yet will not his folly depart from him. Discipline 
has no magic power in itself to transform character. The same 
fire that melts wax bakes clay ; and the correction that softens 
the wise man's heart and turns him from the error of his way 
only hardens the fool's self-will and confirms him in folly. 
The humble, teachable spirit is the first requisite for the gaining 
of knowledge, and especially the knowledge of the deep things 
of the spiritual realm. May God make us as little children, 
that we may enter into his kingdom, and be filled with the 
knowledge of his will in all wisdom. 

12 



178 FRUITS OF WISDOM. [Second Quarter. 

II. But assuming the existence of a discipline-loving spirit — 
and in the case of every Christian we are assuredly entitled to 
do this — what does this scripture tell us of the outward mani- 
festations, the cognizable marks, the perfected fruits of wisdom ? 
In the first place, wisdom will be manifest in right thoughts. 
" The thoughts of the righteous are just, but the counsels of the 
wicked are deceit." There is no vice more hateful to God and 
man than lying, but back of the deceitful lips is a false heart. 
Moral rectitude is the condition of all other virtues whatsoever. 
Unless a man is honest with himself, honest with man, honest 
with God, there is no hope for him in this world or in the 
world to come. The voice of religion and the voice of the 
world are at one in this matter. Like dry rot at the heart of a 
tree, like quicksands underneath a foundation, falsehood makes 
strength and stability impossible. Society is bound together, 
not by laws or by force, but by mutual trustfulness, and trustful- 
ness is possible only when the mass of men are men of just 
thoughts regarding the ordinary affairs of life. The streams of 
commerce would be dried up and grass would grow in the 
streets of our great cities, if the time should ever come when 
men find each other unworthy of trust. It is crass folly that 
attempts to make its way by falsehood and deceit. Honesty is 
not the best policy merely, but the only policy by which man- 
kind can keep itself above barbarism and anarchy for a single 
decade. 

But high as is the ideal that the Proverbs set before us, the 
highest note is not struck in this verse. The wisest of men did 
not reach the moral height of Him who spake as never man 
spake, and it was reserved for Jesus to point out the ripest fruit 
of wisdom, as manifest in the inner man : " Blessed are the 
pure in heart, for they shall see God." Purity of heart con- 
notes rectitude, and all other virtues, for it is the reflection of 
him who is absolute holiness, and higher than this no goal can 
be set for our attainment. 



I/KSSON VII.] 



FRUITS OF WISDOM. 



179 



The natural sequel of right thoughts is right speech, which is 
accordingly named as the second manifestation of wisdom. 
"A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth," 
and though the transgression of the lips is a snare to the evil 
man yet the righteous shall come out of trouble (v. 13). In 
no way are wisdom and folly more easily discovered than by 
the use of speech — the greatest blessing and the greatest curse 
known to man. The sins of the tongue are as numerous as 
they are deadly : swearing, lying, slander, tale-bearing, quar- 
reling, flattery, filthy communications. No sins are so insidious 
and so frequenty committed. Then there are what we may 
call the vices of the tongue : discourtesy, exaggeration, rash 
and inconsiderate speech, vulgar and silly speech. Excessive 
speech is in itself a vice, for it must needs be that one who is 
forever pouring out words is often pouring out folly. We can- 
not stop to examine these fruits of folly in detail, but if further 
word of warning be needed against the serious nature of these 
transgressions and the difficulty of overcoming them, let the 
Apostle James furnish that word. " The tongue," he says, " is 
a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how much 
wood is kindled by how small a fire ! And the tongue is a fire : 
the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which 
defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, 
and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beasts and birds, 
of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed and hath 
been tamed by mankind : but the tongue can no man tame ; 
it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison. Therewith 
bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men, 
which are made after the likeness of God : out of the same 
mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these 
things ought not so to be." 

Shall these things be with us ? Shall we not rather learn the 
beautiful and helpful uses of speech? A word fitly spoken, we 
are told, is like apples of gold in a frame of silver filagree ; let 



180 FRUITS OF WISDOM. [Second Quarter. 

the occasion frame the word and each will set off the other. 
The lack of a little tact often spoils the best-intended effort to 
speak a helpful word. Bearing this rule in mind, we may learn 
to use the tongue wisely and nobly, in the reproof of the erring, 
in the instruction of the ignorant, in giving honor where honor 
is due, and in speaking words of truth and soberness at all 
times, as those who expect to be called into judgment for 
every idle word. This use of speech is one of the richest 
fruits of wisdom, but also one of the slowest to ripen yet skil- 
ful and patient husbandry will not miss its reward in due 
season. 

With right thought and speech, right action goes hand in 
hand. " A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she 
that doeth shamefully is as rottenness in his bones." All 
womanly virtue, not chastity merely, is here praised as the fruit 
of wisdom. " He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of 
bread" (compare also v. 9). Industry is here, as everywhere 
in the Proberbs, exalted as one of the chief attributes of a wise 
man. " A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but 
the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." Kindness to man 
and beast is another characteristic of the wise man, as incon- 
siderate and indiscriminate cruelty is characteristic of the fool 
who lives for self. These specifications of the fruits of wisdom 
are somewhat lacking in breadth and inclusiveness, it is true, 
but the elements of virtuous character in man or woman are 
included or implied in them. They are rather specimens of the 
fruits of the tree of wisdom than an attempt at exhaustive 
enumeration. The virtues are generally found in groups, not 
separately. With industry will usually go temperance, frugality, 
patience, and a whole troop of the more useful qualities in the 
workaday world. With kindness will be found associated all 
those unselfish graces that enoble life and make it worth living. 
With chastity go fidelity, honor, and the loftier virtues that lift 
men above the things of sense and promote human progress in 



Lesson VII.] FRUITS OF WISDOM. l8l 

the knowledge and love of the good, the beautiful and the 
true. 

III. This scripture also holds forth the rewards that come to 
him who cultivates the fruits of wisdom. The truly enlightened 
man finds the pursuit of wisdom its own sufficient reward, but 
all men are not to be moved by the noblest motives. Some- 
thing that appeals to self-interest, that promises an appreciable 
addition to possessions or enhancement of happiness, is needed 
to stimulate their wills to continuous effort. 

The first of these rewards is prosperity. This is promised no 
less than three times in this brief passage : " He that tilleth his 
land shall have plenty of bread ; " " The root of the righteous 
yieldeth fruit;" "The doings of a man's hands shall be ren- 
dered unto him." There may be a hint in these words of 
something higher than mere wordly prosperity, but that is the 
prominent thought. The wise man shall be increased in goods 
as the years go by. Wealth is not, save in exceptional cases, 
quickly gained by some lucky stroke — and in these cases is sel- 
dom honestly come by — but is the result of forethought, frugal- 
ity and industry, patiently continued through a series of years. 
These virtues, we are assured, shall not miss their due reward. 
In their haste to get rich, men forget the conditions under 
which riches may be honestly, and at the same time surely, ac- 
quired. The wise man does not undervalue wealth, but he is 
as far from overvaluing it ; he is not willing to exchange for it, 
his integrity, his self-respect or his good name. He is content 
to be prospered in accordance with the laws of God, and seeks 
not his own advancement at the expense of his fellow men. 
Riches are not always prosperity, even according to the low 
standard of the world. 

A second promised reward is the praise of men : " A man 
shall be commended according to his wisdom, but he that is of 
a perverse heart shall be despised." Only a fool is careless of 
the good opinion of others, but the wise man does not live 



1 82 FRUfTS OF WISDOM. [Second Quarter. 

chiefly to win this good opinion ; he strives to deserve it, but if 
he satisfies the demands of his own conscience and of God's 
laws, he can live without man's praise if need be. Yet the 
approval of men will seldom be withheld in the end from him 
who walks in wisdom's path. If ambition has wrecked many 
souls, if it has deluged continents with blood, if it has prompted 
the most atrocious crimes, it is also the lever that has given the 
world every forward impulse in its history. The desire to be 
honorably distinguished, to leave a name that future generations 
will cherish with admiring affection, is a more powerful motive 
with most men than disinterested benevolence. The commen- 
dation of man is promised to the wise according to the measure 
of his wisdom. 

Security is a third reward promised to him who pursues wis- 
dom. This, too, is mentioned thrice in our lesson : " The root 
of the righteous shall never be moved;" "The house of the 
righteous shall stand;" "The righteous shall come out of 
trouble." The fruit of wisdom is righteousness in thought, speech 
and act, and to this righteousness, ultimate triumph is promised 
by the word of him who cannot lie. The wicked fool is sometimes 
prosperous — for the time, and as men commonly count prosperity 
— and he sometimes wins the applause of men for an hour, but 
the righteous alone is secure in his prosperity. There is a power in 
the world that makes for righteousness. The stars in their courses 
fight against wickedness. There are, it is true, cases in which 
the right goes unrewarded or wrong goes unpunished in this 
life, but they are comparatively few. Ordinary human experi- 
ence, crystallized into many a pithy popular saying, confirms 
God's assurance to us that only the prosperity of the righteous 
man is secure. He has builded his house upon the rock, and 
all else is but sinking sand. 

The righteous is secure because " A good man shall obtain 
favor of Jehovah." This is the last and greatest reward of the 
pursuit of wisdom, for it includes — makes possible, indeed — all 






Wesson VII.] 



FRUITS OF WISDOM. 



183 



the others. He who is favored of God shall also enjoy every 
other good gift. Not always to the outer eye is this promise 
kept, but the eye of faith pierces the surface of things and sees 
it to be profoundly true that all things work together for good 
to them that love God and are loved by him. The Christian is 
not more certain of his own existence than he is of the loving 
care of a Heavenly Father. 

May God give us day by day more of this wisdom that cometh 
from above — a wisdom that is hid from the wise and prudent of 
this world, but is revealed unto babes. May he inspire us to 
cultivate its fruits with greater diligence, and reward us yet more 
richly with his favor. "The end of the matter," saith the 
Preacher, " all hath been heard : fear God and keep his com- 
mandments, for this is the whole of man." 






lessen? l/III. (T)ay 21. 



AGAINST INTEMPERANCE.* 

Proverbs xxiii : 2gsS- 

By the EDITOR. 

THE Bible gives the foes of intemperance, as it gave the 
foes of slavery, much trouble. Since it is incomparably 
the most powerful moral treatise in existence, they natur- 
ally desire to enlist it in their crusade, but in seeking to do this 
they find it an independent, not to say sometimes a refractory 
ally. In the perplexity thus caused, certain advocates of 
temperance renounce the Bible utterly, while others fly to 
almost as vicious an extreme in their efforts to make the old 
book teach as they wish. Of all the perversions of Scripture 
ever committed, if not the worst, certainly among the worst 
have been those to which pious men have resorted in the sup- 
posed interest of temperance. It cannot be that so good a 
cause and so good a book are at heart out of harmony. Perhaps 
in to-day's study we shall sight a mode of reconciliation between 
them. 

The Bible is the most earnest and successful temperance 
book ever written, but its plan for promoting temperance is 
very much broader than that followed by many excellent peo- 

*The sermon for this place was to have been from the pen of Rev. 
John Humpstone, D.D., but, owing to a most regrettable inadver- 
tence, this one had to be substituted. 



Lesson VIII.] 



AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. 



185 



pie now. Its entire method in this matter does not appear 
upon the surface. To understand how wise this is we need to 
consider that while our marvellous Word of God was intended 
for all lands, classes and times, the precise tone and application 
of its message necessarily varies with centuries and circum- 
stances, according to the moral needs of the successive gener- 
ations of men to whom it comes. In studying the whole sweep 
of the Bible's tactics against intemperance, we have to review, 
first, the prima facie teaching of the book, its doctrine, that is, 
as the sacred writings must have been understood on this point 
in the times when they appeared, and as, moreover, those who 
composed them intended them to be understood ; and in the 
second place, the application which under the guidance of the 
fundamental, eternal and most vitally moral principles of the 
Bible we are to-day to make of its temperance teaching. 

Attending, first, to the prima facie attitude of the Bible on 
the subject, we notice that the book nowhere absolutely pro- 
scribes the use of strong liquors. It does not do this by 
explicit command and it does not do it by the example of 
inspired men. Our Saviour himself turned water into wine for 
the use of guests at a marriage festival. Good men have indeed 
argued that this was " sweet " wine, which would not intoxicate ; 
but such a view has no solid foundation. It was wine which, 
had any drunk of it too freely, would have deprived them of 
their wits. So would that which Paul urged Timothy to take, 
for his stomach's sake and his frequent infirmities. There can 
be no doubt that all or nearly all the biblical worthies, like our 
own great-grandfathers, made more or less use of intoxicants, 
or that they regarded this use, so long as moderate, perfectly 
innocent. Excess in this habit, the abuse thereof, is what the 
Bible condemns, and such vice it does its utmost to repress. 

It is thus the hardened drinker with whom our lesson for 
to-day deals. Nowhere in these verses are we told that the 
taste of strong drink is to all and under all circumstances sin- 



1 86 AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. [Second Quarter. 

ful. Those who are condemned are such as "tarry long" at 
the wine and make effort to hunt up " mixed wine," both sure 
signs of sottishness and depraved appetite. They who have 
woe, sorrow, contentions, complaining, and wounds without 
cause, are marked by these very designations as drunkards. 
They are men hopelessly deep in their cups, whose " red- 
ness of eyes " unites with the redness of their noses to adver- 
tise them and their ways to all who meet them. The com- 
mand here not to touch wine or even look at it, is of force, 
according to this scripture, not universally or unconditionally 
but only in certain states of the wine or of the man : viz., when 
the appearance or the taste of the drink makes it specially 
tempting. " Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, 
when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth down 
smoothly." If thou tamper with it then it will master thee ; 
thou wilt be weaker the next time, falling more easily, until at 
the last what now seems so pleasant shall prove thy death, bit- 
ing like a serpent and stinging like an adder. 

No doubt it might sometimes be a man's duty even in 
ancient days to abstain entirely from the use of intoxicants. 
If this were not necessary on one's own account, probably 
cases might arise then as now when duty would require one to 
forego an intrinsically innocent pleasure on account of one's 
influence over others. But as a general thing, according to 
the plain and inevitable interpretation of this passage and of all 
the other scriptural teachings devoted to the subject, as the men 
to whom they were first delivered must certainly have understood 
them, moderate indulgence was in those times the only defini- 
tion of temperance. It was the privilege and the usual prac- 
tice of the best people. If there were any limitations to this 
rule, they were strictly exceptional, and each had to be justified 
by principles more or less aside from the ordinary course. 

As we have said, the Bible is a moral guide for all genera- 
tions. But that interpretation of it upon any point which is 



1.1-ssox VIii.] AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. I&7 

the most natural and correct for a people at a given grade of 
culture, is not necessarily the proper interpretation for all pro- 
bationers to the end of time. There are back-lying principles 
of the Word of God, not meant to reveal themselves with much 
power, if at all, in earlier ages, which become operative and 
binding when the conditions of society are such as to bring 
them into prominence. Not only was biblical revelation, con- 
sidered in itself, progressively given, but men's apprehension of 
it as a whole after it is all delivered, is also progressive. 

If moderate indulgence in intoxicants was legitimate and 
right for the saints of Solomon's or our Saviour's time, it does 
not at all follow that this is the rule by which people are always 
to go. Circumstances alter cases. The immutableness of the 
Bible's morality does not consist in any immutable rules of 
conduct considered as a strictly external affair. The outward 
acts that are right for one age are not necessarily right for 
another. They may even be wrong. They are almost more 
likely than not to be so. There is truth in what has been 
called the relativity of ethical precepts as to outward deeds. 
So far as rules of conduct relate to external acts and not to 
states or acts of will, not one of them is perpetually valid. 

What it is best and right to command or permit in one cen- 
tury it becomes best and right in another absolutely to forbid. 
Moses allowed polygamy and Christ forbade it ; but neither 
was wrong in his precepts. In this rubric of morality there is 
no conflict between them, since each bade what was best for 
his day. Christ himself inculcated, by his example, the duty 
of fidelity to the Synagogue, knowing at the time that days 
would come when, in consequence of his own words and spirit, 
believers in him would be forced to oppose the whole Jewish 
polity in the bitterest manner. The old pro-slavery agitators 
were quite right in citing Scripture as on their side. In the 
" first intension," so to speak, of its utterances on the subject, 
the Bible is a strong pro-slavery treatise. To-day we have dug 



1 85 AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. £Second Quarter. 

deeper into it and we find that the fundamental meaning of the 
divine word is, for our time and forever hereafter, hostile to all 
forms of human bondage. History has justified slavery quite 
as positively as Scripture has. The institution was anciently a 
great aid to civilization. This is, however, no plea for continu- 
ing it now. With these examples before us, we shall be less 
surprised if we find that while the Bible's temperance require- 
ment once was only, "Indulge, but with circumspection," it 
now reads, " Abstain." 

What is it after all which pure religion wishes to accomplish 
in men? Surely it is not uniformity in formal behavior, but 
holiness and righteousness in life, which may consist with much 
variety in good men's outward acts. The aim of God's truth 
is to produce character, not such or such modes of action 
irrespective of character, however excellent such modes of 
action might intrinsically be. 

It is because it seeks to build character, not conformity to 
an external model, that Scripture employs to direct us the 
power of argument. The inspired writers persistently refuse to 
treat us like brutes or children, to be guided by dead or blind 
commands, the reasons for which we cannot understand. They 
appeal to us as rational beings, laying before us the reasonable 
considerations which ought to govern our acts. " Come and let 
us reason together," says God's Word. Every child of God is 
expected, on occasion, to give a reason for the hope within 
him. All conduct under the influence of divine revelation is 
meant to flow from rational self-determination, not from impulse 
or compulsion. 

It requires no very deep regard to see that a policy of mod- 
erate indulgence which would be entirely innocuous in earlier 
days might now be extremely perilous and harmful. In 
antiquity the life of men was relatively cool, phlegmatic, dis- 
passionate. Society as we now know it hardly existed. Men 
lived apart. Individuals were more and communities less 






Lesson VIII.] AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. 1 89 

important than now. There was no feverish rush for wealth or 
for other objects of human desire such as greet us on every 
hand at the present time. Men were less in danger morally 
from any form of social habit than they are to-day. 

"Who can see the green earth any more 
As she was by the sources of time ? 
Who imagines her fields as they lay 
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough ? 
Who thinks as they thought, 
The tribes who then roamed on her breast, 
Her vigorous, primitive sons ? 

This tract which the river of time 

Now flow 7 s through with us, is the plain. 

Gone is the calm of its earlier shore. 

Bordered by cities, and hoarse 

With a thousand cries, is its stream. 

And we on its breast, our minds 

Are confused as the cries which we hear, 

Changing and short as the sights which we see." 

As man's life on earth lengthens out, society suffers a pro- 
gressive condensation, the rate of this progress continually 
accelerating. The change in this respect which has come over 
the world since the beginning of the present century, to go no 
further back, is tremendous. We do not appreciate it without 
considerable thought and much knowledge of history. Men 
now go in droves. Society is a momentous fact. The in- 
fluence of man over man is enormous and inevitable. All the 
conditions of our modern life force men to act together, and 
thus to put themselves to a great extent and far more than was 
necessary before, in one another's power. The causes which 
have have swept away individualism in trade and industry make 
it also impossible in its old form in morals and religion. Solid 
godliness in a man tells as never before, and so does vice. If 
I use intoxicants, I cannot help being more a power for evil over 
my neighbor than would have been possible for a man of my 
character and position in the middle ages. 



I90 AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. [Second Quarter. 

This thickening up of the world's population, this intensifica- 
tion of social influence, this habituation on the part of all of us 
to movement in squads and companies, of course reacts upon 
individual experiences, temperaments and constitutions. We 
breathe oftener than our ancestors did. Our pulses beat faster. 
Perfect self-command is a harder attainment year by year, and 
this not only because of the greater importunities from without 
but also in consequence of lessened stability within. Stability 
is lessened partly by the habit of acting with others, and partly 
by a certain nervousness and lack of equipoise which are strictly 
personal, modifications of our individual being, though gener- 
ated by the new and peculiar circumstances amid which we are 
now living. 

Here in America climatic peculiarities increase the difficulty 
in a person's maintenance of solid self- equilibrium. It is more 
dangerous for an American to drink than for a European. 
There is somewhat in our atmosphere which breeds nervous- 
ness, fever, and a quick temper, unfavorable to deliberation 
or mature reflection in any department of life. We draw con- 
clusions too quickly, and are never thorough, according to the 
old world's standard. We are born to commit suicide, as it 
were, by over-rapid, abnormally intense living. 

Two facts, then, rise into view as modern modifiers of a 
good man's moral task when facing the sin of intemperance. 
One is that each of us needs more care of himself under the 
influence of temptation, and particularly of sensuous tempta- 
tion, than did the contemporaries of King David or of the 
Apostle Paul. We cannot with impunity venture so far with 
an imperious appetite as they could. The " hedge principle," 
obsta principiis, beware of the first step, is more applicable to 
our conduct than it was to theirs. 

Meantime individual character, personal morality, is as pre- 
cious as ever. The New Testament is much more emphatic in 
this point than the Old. A picture like our lesson, calling so 



Lesson VIII.] AGAINST INTEMPERANCE. 191 

much attention to the mere bodily evils of intemperance, would 
seem out of place in the teachings of Christ. He is too serious 
and spiritual. The body is indeed precious, but mainly as the 
temple of the Holy Ghost. One has no right to tempt himself 
to profane that temple. To impair the solidity of our moral 
standing and walk is criminal because of the infinite value of 
the soul, created and intended to become perfect in the image 
of God. 

The other fact touching the duty of modern saints to be 
rigorously temperate is that the principle of abstinence for the 
sake of others of right now claims a sweep of application 
broader than needed to be accorded to it in biblical ages. 

Suppose that we ourselves are morally strong, quite sure that 
regular indulgence in wine would never harm us in any man- 
ner ; then, were we alone in the world, the indulgence would 
not be wrong. But, while the mere whims of people good or 
bad are not authoritative, and it may sometimes be our duty to 
traverse them by way of remedy, we have no right ever to 
gratify ourselves at the cost of real net moral harm to our fel- 
lowmen. 

It follows that the scope of legitimate independence as to 
habits that involve outward action is more limited in modern 
than it was in ancient times. Nearly all the conditions of life 
were of old such that most men were little in danger of being 
overwhelmed by passion or appetite or rushed on in a path of 
life which was morally objectionable. Little by little, though 
very rapidly for the last century, reverse conditions have 
become prevalent, so that rules for the practical guidance of 
life in such a matter as temperance naturally bear a tenor con- 
siderably more stringent than their original one. To-day, 
instead of moderate indulgence being the rule, subject to cer- 
tain limitations, abstinence is the rule, with exceptions only in 
cases of necessity. 



lessoi? I/. f[\ay 28. 



THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. 

Proverbs xxxi : 10-30. 

By Rev. C. H. WATSON, Arlington, Mass. 

IN the portraiture of woman, the background of the Book of 
Proverbs is as dark as the pit. Upon that sombre canvas, 
this sharp, strong picture of the virtuous woman comes 
out well. Woman is, in this book, ever looking, tending and 
moving, either down or up, either down to hell with the men 
she has duped, or upward with her household toward the 
kingdom of God. She is either " strange," " foolish," unworthy, 
through folly and shame, of the natural order of life which she 
has desecrated, or "good," "virtuous," "excellent" — the per- 
sonification of wisdom in her simple home relations. All these 
excellences centre in the woman described in to-day's lesson. 

She is domestic. That word sets forth her various relations 
as by a touch of golden light. She is wife, mother, neighbqr. 
As to what a woman should be in the first two of these relations, 
people are not perfectly agreed. In certain " advanced " circles, 
a babel of different voices is heard upon this question. Touch- 
ing the glory of wifehood and motherhood, however, morally 
sound persons will always be of one opinion, the one based on 
the concordant teaching of Nature and Scripture. The best 
wisdom of every age will echo that belief, self-styled " progres- 
sivists " to the contrary notwithstanding. Some truths are too 
deeply written in law and life to be rubbed out. It is extraor- 
dinarily significant that in this book, the world's best wisdom- 



tESSON IX.] 



TtiE EXCELLENT WOltfAN. 



m 



literature, the virtuous woman is enthroned in a home, as if 
there were this one sphere and opportunity for the development 
of the whole of woman, and only this one. In such a view, 
the Book of Proverbs is but the mirror of nature. God hath 
most wisely set the solitary in families. Man for woman and 
woman for man is nature's manifest law. If the two sexes are 
to develop each its maximum strength, realize and mature to 
the full each its many-sided nature, each grow the richest 
possible character, they must be united. It is no better for one 
to be alone than for the other. 

True, if hindering circumstances exist, if cases arise, as they 
often do, where life in the estate of singleness is unavoidable, 
nature's aim is not necessarily defeated. Character may then 
be developed by some sort of devoted activity for general 
society, which is more important than the single family. Jesus 
was not a husband, foregoing this lesser relation, doubtless, that 
thereby he might the more savingly become Bridegroom to the 
whole Church of God. Nor can Paul's manner of life be 
adduced as indicating celibacy to be a higher law than mar- 
riage. His and his Master's example in this respect only proves 
the existence of cases where a man's or a woman's call to serve 
general humanity involves such special danger and is at the 
same time so urgent, that the divine blessings of companion 
and children must be renounced rather than beset God's servant 
with needless cares, or force a family circle to share his woes. 

A great majority of the excuses which are made for not 
entering into the family estate betray selfishness if not deprav- 
ity. When it is otherwise, when celibacy is enforced by hard 
circumstances or by some divine devotion as just pointed out, 
the subject of it is more often a woman than a man. Corres- 
ponding to this is the compensating fact that even involuntary 
independence of this sort opens a field for woman's divinest 
tact and power. " She spreadeth out her hand to the poor ; 
yea she reacheth forth her hands to the needy." Though not 

13 



194 THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. [Second Quarter. 

a wife or a mother, she may still be neighbor, the compassionate, 
strengthening, nearest one to many a weak, ignorant, blind 
stumbler on the path of life. Wonderfully enriching is such a 
ministry. It bespeaks the spirit of Jesus, and it has in it the 
noblest essence of all the family relationships. In this way 
veritably the barren may have more children than she which 
hath a husband. There are women with many children who 
are not mothers. There are mothers many who have borne no 
children. These familiar pictures confront us everywhere in 
life : the natural relationships perverted by those who are 
unworthy of them, and the worthy shut out of those relation- 
ships in kind yet sharing nature's rich and abundant compensa- 
tions. Nature is rarely confined to one method of securing her 
essential ends. 

But while no woman need think her life a failure if she does 
not marry, nature's obvious rule is that each woman have a 
husband and found a family, and that in the experiences thus 
occasioned she grow the humanities and sagacities that shall 
make her " virtuous." This term as the wise man used it sug- 
gests a large endowment of common sense, moral strength, 
and various general practicalness. The characteristic begins 
with the exquisite sensibility that is specially womanly, and 
broadens out into heroic qualities, bodily strength, mental grasp 
and firmness, capacity for wielding power, all still compatible 
with the delicacy and purity out of which they spring. To have 
been a faithful wife and mother makes possible to a woman 
enterprises vastly greater than those terms suggest. In sound- 
ing the depth and measuring the height and breadth of those 
relations, she instinctively binds to herself interests beyond her 
own household. The woman whose " husband is known in the 
gates," and whose "children arise up and call her blessed," 
must have been trained in a practical school. She is no 
balloonist ; hers is no aerial philanthropy. She knows how 
large a task in practical compassion can be wisely undertaken, 



1/ESSON IX.] 



THE EXCELLENT WOMAN, 



195 



and how tasks which are assumed can be most deftly carried 
through. She goes outside her home with the immense skill 
and capacity gained there. Her tact is unerring, her insight 
never fails. She makes few mistakes in ordinary neighborliness, 
or in those more perplexing moral and social problems where 
men so often err. It appears certain that in many departments 
of sociological investigation and practice women will far excel 
men. 

The woman on whom this family training has done its normal 
and perfect work, " home body " though she may be, cannot 
but be felt in the city hall, state house and capitol ; in the gates, 
on the streets, through the marts. This is the kind of woman 
that gets to the heart of places, practices and institutions with- 
out much wear of shoes or rasping of throat. There is another 
kind that gads out soles and uppers to get nowhere, and con- 
tinually spoils the voice in saying nothing. One bears relation- 
ships which she has wholly accepted, to the meaning of which 
she has attained ; the other, though perhaps called by the sacred 
name of " wife " and " mother," has failed to be either, not 
knowing the divine career they suggest, or suspecting that she 
has missed it. 

The excellent woman's relations are suggestive of her duties. 
Wife, mother, neighbor, are a trio of relations that open into 
more than a trio of duties, and bring more than a triple crown 
of reward. 

When it is said of a woman that " the heart of her hus- 
band doth safely trust in her," that " she will do him good and 
not evil all the days of her life," something more than plodding, 
domestic dutifulness is intended. It means that her varying 
duties to him and his have grown fruitfully from the one root 
of duty to her own soul. She has not tampered with her 
deeper self. She began with the " fear of God," never losing 
it in any subsequent relation with husband, child or neighbor. 
Rebekah had at first a love brave and beautiful, but by fatal 



ig6 THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. [Second Quarter. 

dalliance with truth fell into dark favoritism and deception, 
which breathed the mildew of fraternal hatred into the souls of 
her sons. How different the woman of our lesson, who con- 
tinually fastens her true, clear eye upon what is due to herself 
as a responsible being. He who keeps himself God keeps. 
The character beginning in those depths comes clearly out, 
and every heart can safely trust it. It will do good and not 
evil all the days. There is no foundation for common duty 
like radical dutifulness of soul. It is a hidden, wide- ramifying 
root of moral stability and undeviating righteousness. Such 
inner piety becomes a great first cause in a character, virtues 
being only its effects, the natural outgoings of a faithful soul into 
all the practical duties which the relations of life lay open. The 
loyal soul is more than any efficiency that calls attention to it. 
The virtuous woman is greater than anything she says or does. 
Her touch gives even the trivial consequence ; her contact with 
the commonplace makes it eminent. 

How plain and ordinary are the excellent woman's activities ! 
The description of her contains not a syllable about ideals, 
abstractions, philosophies ; not a hint of mysticism, theosophy, 
transcendentalism, or over-soul. How homely, concrete, prac- 
tical, unromantic and almost vulgarly busy she is ! Twelve 
verses of the twenty-two composing this alphabetical acrostic 
poem relate to her diversified industries. They picture a busy 
woman at home, that is all. Her life-work is doing her whole 
duty as a wife, mother, neighbor, nothing more. Was she 
really right ? Is she to be praised ? If she is our model, some 
modern women, " emancipated " from those duties, are astray. 
Let us see how time is passed and strength used by this woman 
whom the Bible crowns. 

John Ruskin, stern lover of reality, keeps close to the script- 
ural award when he says : " Woman's power is for rule, not for 
battle ; her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for 
sweet ordering, arrangement and decision. She sees the qual- 



LESSON IX.] 



THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. 



I 97 



ities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great func- 
tion is praise. She enters into no contest, but infallibly 
adjudges the crown of contest." 

Along this line of influence, practical arrangement, knowledge 
of values and places, moral discrimination, and infallible judg- 
ment, the activities of the excellent woman run. She does not 
dwarf her power by seeking its public display. She is not car- 
rying on a "reform," addressing political conventions, or 
straining herself to prove that a woman can do a man's work. 
She knows where her rule is most potent. Is there any other 
human sovereignty so absolute, permanent, or gracious, as the 
mother's ? It is the dominion of love, of the love which takes 
her bravely and wisely through life's deep travail, pain and sac- 
rifice, over the highway from innocence to wisdom. This pro- 
cess is always strenuous, and often of uncertain issue. It is not 
as common for woman to end wisely and strongly as it is for 
her to begin gently and purely. Her often rough career of 
suffering and subjection may bring weakness to her character, 
bitterness or frivolity to her intellect, or a despairing skepticism 
to her spirit. 

When, however, an earnest and highminded woman accepts 
her sex, and gives her life to the exacting yet ennobling activity 
which it makes possible for her, she acquires from her ministry 
the secret joy of Christ. Her voice gains authority akin to his 
whose spirit she has assimilated. She does what men can never 
do, yet what must be done, else society will be undone. 

Women are to-day everywhere doing work that was formerly 
reserved to man. Mostly, this is well. Our lesson teaches that 
the model woman has no fear of masculinity in the mere form, 
the external nature, of the work she does. Welcome, welcome, 
each newly opened door inviting girls and women to the earn- 
ing of honest livings. But are men doing women's work? 
Nay, they cannot and will not try. No masculine crusade in 
that direction is perceptible. Characteristic woman's work is 



I98 THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. [Second Quarter. 

too holy and fundamental for the rougher sex. To brood over 
the beginnings of moral and physical life, to create pre-natal 
influences favorable to physical strength and happiness, as well 
as to moral character ; to foresee and foreshape environments 
with tireless tact and self-devotion; to animate the future of 
souls with her own self-created present, and paint them with 
heavenly hues from her own blood — this is woman's work. It 
is more celestial than any that man has done, and requires a 
virtue of which he is incapable. It bespeaks a dominion beyond 
his grasp. It calls forth a heroism that does not exhaust itself 
in great public spasms, but quietly renews itself every morning, 
and watches its eternal treasures while the world sleeps. Earth 
and heaven join in this work, one as truly present as the other. 

But while woman's special sphere borders so closely on 
heaven, and makes her co-operant with God himself, much of 
her peculiar activity is intensely practical. There is nothing 
too common, trivial, difficult, disagreeable, novel or impossible 
for a true wife and mother to consider her business and to 
master. She has a noble discontent that cannot rest until she 
has tested by her touch everything in near and remote relation 
to the interests of her household. She knows that there is 
nothing in the environment but is silently moulding the hus- 
band and impressing the plastic child. Nothing short of a 
moral and material mastery of the family surroundings can 
satisfy her. Every little thread of practical knowledge detected 
by her vigilance, gets into her hand. It is by such acquisition 
that wisdom comes, as also authority and power to bless. 

The excellent woman's vast knowledge is hers through 
practical duties conscientiously done. She knows all about 
wool and flax. She has the discerning eye and touch for 
fabrics. She is aware that bodies are more than raiment, yet 
it is respect for bodies and the sense of their preciousness that 
renders her an authority in clothes. 

She has unfailing taste and judgment in foods. The life is 



Lesson IX.] 



THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. 



I 99 



more than meat, but she reflects that proper diet makes life 
happier and more efficient still. She is acquainted with the 
best markets. She can tell a good piece of land, when and 
how to buy it, and what are the most suitable means for 
improving it. In all sorts of merchandise she is equally a 
connoisseur. Hers is a judgment by fundamental and practi- 
cal knowledge. It is begun in acquaintance with the raw 
material, continued in " laying her hands " to the tools of man- 
ufacture, and ended in an expert feel for its texture and in ability 
to fix its price in the market. Such keenness in appraising 
values makes her strong in those vigilant economies which 
improvidence always wrongly confounds with meanness. They 
relate to her powers as well as to her goods. She has always 
surplus vigor for needful deeds whether of business or of 
mercy. The arms stretched out to the poor are strong, the 
hands touching the needy deft and steady. She has learned 
the criminality of waste and suffers no foolish leakages of 
mind, spirit or force. While it is yet night she riseth to nourish 
the family's strength for the day and to plan and to start its 
work. 

Evidently the excellent woman makes no main business 
of "society." She does not keep a salon, else she would not 
retire until the time when she now arises for the day's duties. 
Things are chaotic with a woman when she confounds night 
with day, cultivating a kind of brilliancy that flashes best in the 
dark, and has to hide from the old, truth-telling sun. Our noble 
woman's discipline includes even the unruly member, for she 
openeth her mouth with wisdom, and the law of kindness is in 
her tongue, which must be still until it is ready to move 
according to that law. She has the composure of self-disci- 
plined and self-regulated strength. She has provided against 
more formidable visitors than " snow," hence nothing disturbs 
her soul's equipoise. " Strength and dignity are her clothing, 
and she laugheth at the time to come." With such a character, 



200 THE EXCELLENT WOMAN. [Second Quarter. 

the time to come must issue out of that which now is. Hence 
she can calmly wait. There is no prophecy of good more sure 
than the present possession of a character and spirit like hers. 

It is in this lofty sense that duties are connected with rewards- 
Just as surely as relations point to duties, duties entail rewards. 
The reward already lies potentially in the palm of the dutiful 
hand. No idle hand need attempt the seizure. If reward 
comes only to its own, idleness can only vainly clutch and 
reach out. Through good work faithfully done does character 
go to its crown. Its crown is thus its own. God gives it, but 
we fashion it. " We then are workers together with him." 
" Ye are my crown " said the Apostle to men for whom he had 
given his bodily exertions and his heart's blood. Is not this the 
law of life and of the more abundant life yet to come ? What 
need of richer reward than the results worked out by our own 
spirits, and perfected by our own tireless and devoted brains 
and fingers, as we have found God, found ourselves, accepted 
both, and wrought righteousness in our various relations, through 
our duties to God, ourselves, and our children? Is not the 
mother's crown of glory a rich one, which she wins in firmly 
treading down, like the Sistine Madonna, the dark clouds, the 
powers of evil, the insidious allurements of selfishness and 
vanity, which surround her offspring, and holding high her 
child toward the sweet angelic influences which are borne down 
from God to minister to him? What better praise than in 
eschewing deceitful favor and vain beauty, and choosing like 
Michael Angelo's favorite sibyl, rather to become lowly and 
worn but wise in teaching little children and leading them into 
the kingdom of God? Does not that woman excel the many 
that have done virtuously, who binds herself voluntarily to her 
own nature and possibilities as woman, wife and mother, sees 
the greater in the seemingly less, and lives for it day and night, 
her faith failing not, but ever holding fast to the substance of 
things unseen? 



lessor? /• JuQe 4. 



REVEREXCE AXD FIDELITY 
Ecclesiastes u; 1-12. 



By Rev. E. P. TULLER. Lawrence. Mass. 



THE writer of Ecclesiastes was a preacher or debater. He 
was a man of experience who gave to his companions in 
the assembly the result of his observations in life. He 
had tried the various methods by which men seek satisfaction-. 
All had failed. Money, wisdom, appetite., social delights cannot 
permanently please. True peace is to be obtained only in 
recognizing God as the Righteous One. and in obeying his 
laws. 

The preacher, however, warns against a false idea of devotion 
to God. There is as little real blessing or true religion in a 
thoughtless attendance upon religious duties or in formal offer- 
ings of service as there is in seeking wealth or pleasure. True 
inward vital belief in God and reverence for him are required. 
They will assure you a correct relation to your fellow-men, who 
are, with you. God's rational creatures, living under his law and 
the objects of his love. If you regard him as you ought you 
cannot but treat them as you ought. The true fear of God is 
thus the basis of a righteous life, and such a life, and such a 
life alone, answers the deepest cry of the human heart for 
satisfaction. 

The first section of the lesson indicates some of the specially 
important ways in which a truly reverent attitude toward God 



202 REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. [Second Quarter. 

reveals itself, and where hypocrisy is most easily fallen into as 
well as most deleterious : first, in public worship, second in 
private devotion, third in spontaneous promises of religious 
charity. 

Our fear of God is well tested in public worship. " Keep 
thy foot when thou goest to the house of God." Temple or 
synagogue services call for a reverent attitude of mind and 
heart. Reverence will doubtless manifest itself in respectful 
demeanor and thoughtful expression ; but the phrase " keep 
thy foot," refers rather to the state of the soul. Guard thy 
heart when thou goest to worship God. How to guard it is 
declared. Go to offer your sacrifice with sincere repentance 
and a true desire to please God. Engage thoughtfully in the 
services. Attentively follow the minister as he offers the sacri- 
fices. Meditate deeply on the passages from law, or prophets, 
or psalms in the liturgy. Impress your mind with their signifi- 
cation and their significance, the meaning of the sacrifices, 
the truth of the words. Much of this truth may be old ; see 
if you cannot go more deeply into it than has been your wont. 
Do not dawdle, do not sham. And going home with new 
thoughts and thoughtfulness touching divine things, put in 
practice whatever convictions the Spirit of God may have borne 
in upon you. That will be true worship. 

This is good gospel for the year 1893. How many thought- 
lessly visit the house of God, go from mere habit, or because 
others go, or because they expect to see their friends there, or 
to hear some new thing? To not a few church attendance is 
literally a sacrifice, performed as a required duty, as though 
presence in God's house were the sum total of worship. Others 
look upon it as the great thing to do to keep God on good 
terms, and, consequently, after performing the sacrifice, return 
to their usual round and mode of living. By acting in any of 
these ways we dishonor God and offer the sacrifice of fools. 
We betray a total misapprehension of God's will in this weighty 



>- X.] REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. 2O3 

matter. They that worship God must worship him in spirit and 
in truth. God seeketh such to worship him. To be true 
worship sacrifice must be an expression of the immost soul. 
Hardly less of an evil is it when pretending worshipers hurry 
through the service with minds full of cares over the past or of 
plans for the future. Such do not profit by the truth proclaimed, 
and it is only an accident if they carry away from the solemn 
assemblage any benefit at all. 

A man's fear of God is very severely tested also in those 
devotions which take the form of prayer and are personal 
instead of congregational. Such devotions may be offered in 
the temple or in the home, in public or in private. Wherever 
presented, to be real, they must be more than formal, more than 
mere lip-service. To chatter before God is to show little 
appreciation of his character or of the true nature of prayer. 

Remember who and what God is. He is not a fellow-man, 
or a fellow-being, as an angel ; but is the author of all being. 
In majesty, in holiness, in greatness, he is farther above us than 
we above the minutest forms of life. Before him we, though 
existing in his image, fade into insignificance : while all the 
significance we at any rate have, beams from him, for we are 
the work of his hand. Almighty, he creates and controls 
the universe. His knowledge is infinite. The righteous one, 
holy, blessed, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of 
David and Solomon, before whom angels bow and whom no 
temple can contain, is the being thou wouldest fain invoke. 
And thou ! — thou art upon the earth, with thy little mind, frail 
body, and life but a span long. Oh, " be not rash with thy 
mouth " if thou wilt speak to the Eternal ! Use no hackneyed 
expressions that shall let the mind drift. Weigh thy speech, 
and see to it that soul goes into even- word. u Let not thy 
heart be hasty to utter anything before God : for God is in 
heaven and thou upon the earth : therefore let thy words be 
few," 



204 REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. [Second Quarter. 

This, too, is valuable exhortation for contemporary professors 
of religion. Both the evils which Ecclesiastes impliedly con- 
demns, formality in congregational worship and listless, flabby 
mentality in private prayer, dreadfully re-act on character. They 
beget general insincerity and hollowness of heart. They create 
an incapacity for genuine and solid godliness. Doubtful if 
human beings morally more worthless anywhere exist than 
those whose inner life has been thus honeycombed : men who, 
in their way, pray easily and without ceasing, but do not tell the 
truth, pay their debts, give for missions, deny themselves for 
their neighbors, or show any other essential christian grace. 
This conjunction of sham piety with real godlessness brings upon 
religion nearly all the odium it surfers ; and it founds the suspic- 
ion, almost a conviction in the minds of many fairly sensible 
worldlings, that all religion is a cheat. 

Were the Ecclesiastes with us now he would very likely am- 
plify this part of his sermon into particulars somewhat as fol- 
lows : i. Do not pray too long, either in public or in private. 
Do not attempt to tell God all you know. Imitate Christ in 
this, who always prayed briefly. Pray for exactly what you 
want, in your own way, however homely. Speak to the point, 
and be soon done. 2. Let the anti-ritualist beware of ritual. 
Do not get enslaved to set forms of supplication. Use not 
vain repetitions, as the heathen and many Christians, especially 
ministers, do. 3. Pray regularly, yet beware of regularity in 
prayer. Otherwise you will fall into the error of supposing that 
going through a certain form once, twice or thrice daily is 
praying, and it is not. Prayer is the spirit of prayer. This is 
why we can pray without ceasing yet not be always upon our 
knees. 4. Avoid making in prayer inordinate confessions of 
your own sinfulness. You are wicked enough, doubtless, but 
do not paint the picture so dark as to make it a solid black 
surface and no picture at all. Be careful and serious here. 
5. If you are a pastor, do not use the form of prayer as a 



tESSON X.] REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. 20§ 

means for publicly castigating the parishioners who wish that 
you would hand in your resignation. 

The tendency of loquacity and make-believe worship to ren- 
der men's characters unstable seems to be the preacher's 
reason for noting in connection with that vice the bad habit of 
hasty promises, pledges and vows touching religious duty. Our 
scripture bluntly tells us this is the practice of fools. "When 
thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath 
no pleasure in fools ; pay that which thou vowest. Better is 
it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest 
vow and not pay." Talking too much on matters in general, 
habitually speaking out something or other on whatever subject 
is presented, we address God carelessly, and this not only in 
the way of adoration and petition but in promises as to what 
we will do for him. We then make too thoughtless covenants 
with men as well. 

Once, in distress, you said : If God will deliver me from this 
trial, I will present a gift to him ; I will perform such and such 
a service. But the danger being past, the gift appeared more 
than could well be paid, the service greater than could easily 
be performed, and your vow went unfulfilled. God had not 
required of you that act. You pledged it of your own accord, 
and you failed to do as you agreed. Such cases are not 
confined to prayer. In the midst of a great crowd of people, 
when various influences stir my emotion, I, in a moment of 
warmth, volunteer to perform some deed of charity. But the 
excitement wears off, and I find my heart unwilling to carry 
into effect the covenant uttered by my lips. I may in my 
haste have promised what it was physically impossible for me 
to perform ; in which case, if I had reason to fear it was so, 
my "mouth has caused my flesh to sin " (v. 6). It is no valid 
excuse in such a case for me to come before God's minister 
and plead immunity from God's wrath, on the pretense that 
I made a mistake, " for it came to pass through the multitude 
of thy dreams and vanities and many words." 



206 REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. [Second quarter. 

Of course we are here implicitly bidden to perform all proper 
promises whenever we possibly can ; but the point particularly 
insisted on is that we have no right ever to make promises or 
undertake obligations of any sort without adequate reflection. 
Think before you bind yourself to this or that course. That it 
is in itself a good course does not alone make legitimate your 
agreement to take it. Do not be stampeded into making 
pledges even to the doing of good. And, obviously, if it is 
wrong to assume under excitement obligations which cooler 
judgment would have declined, it must be wrong to excite men 
for the purpose of securing from them such obligations, or to 
solicit such from them when excited. We should remember 
this when urging congregations of young people to sign the 
temperance pledge. Under impassioned appeals for money for 
missions or other christian work, while many are stingy and 
phlegmatic enough, not a few pledge more than they ought. 
Results on the whole would, beyond question, be better if, 
in such instances, we addressed ourselves more to principle 
and less to emotion. We should thus foster sincerity and 
enrich character, whereas now, according to the scripture which 
we are studying, some of our practices tend to dispel both. Be 
frank, genuine, sincere, solid, really what you seem ; not frivo- 
lous, flighty, giddy, volatile, hypocritical or rash — this is in 
sum the message of our lesson's first section. 

The second and briefer section of the lesson seeks to dispel 
certain illusory facts which appear to controvert some of the 
advice given in the first. Verses eight and nine explain the 
vanity of high official position ; verses ten to twelve elucidate 
the vanity of wealth. 

Do not be deceived at appearances, says the man of obser- 
vation. You may think that the extortionate Persian officer 
who struts about his province in his fine uniform is happy and 
satisfied with life. It may seem strange to you that I prescribe 
righteousness when you are distressed. You, perhaps, suppose 






Lesson X. 



REVEfcENCE AND FIDELITY. 



207 



that the oppressor who disregards God and truth has a delight- 
ful situation and an easy time. But you are mistaken. The 
peace of such is only apparent. The oppressor is in turn the 
oppressed. Throughout that immense Persian empire there is 
a hierarchy of officers, grade above grade. Each higher func- 
tionary grinds the face of the one beneath, and lords it over him 
without mercy, while all alike are crushed for the pleasure of 
the king. Each is, in fact, compelled to brutality toward his 
inferiors in order to satisfy the demands of those over him. 
These slaves in high places suffer no less than you suffer. Most 
of them have no proper peace or contentment, but exactly the 
reverse ; and if any chance to possess real enjoyment, it comes 
not from their positions, but from their dispositions, the very 
dispositions I am urging you to acquire. In a sense, indeed, 
the great ones of earth are underlings after all. Every one of 
them, even the king, is dependent on the fruit of the field and 
the labor of the masses. 

The millionaire is precisely as miserable as the great official. 
The rich are to be pitied, not envied. Temporal wealth is a 
great burden. If you have it the rabble incessantly besiege you. 
Beggars, retainers, and servants eat up all your increase, so that 
the support of your establishment costs a continual struggle. 
After all, the only thing which large possessions bring to their 
owner is the poor privilege of looking about him and saying, 
All this is mine. Dives must spend his days in toil and fret. 
Night brings him no sleep, but he tosses, anxious for the morn- 
ing, yet not knowing why. " He that loveth silver shall not be 
satisfied with silver ; nor he that loveth abundance with increase : 
this also is vanity." 

How timely is this message ! The belief that the rich and 
great are extraordinarily happy, ihat they enjoy an extra share 
of life's good things, that their lot is enviable, and that God is 
very mean, or at least acts mysteriously, in so exalting them 
above the rest of us, is the most stupendous delusion of this 



20$ REVERENCE AND FIDELITY. |Second Barter. 

age. So far as one can judge; it deceives more people now 
than at any preceding period, and deceives them worse. It is 
the darling hoax of our century. We see this alike in the airs 
which great people put on^ and in the toadying attitude of the 
multitude toward them. The saddest aspect of the present 
labor agitation is the assumption of nearly all who plead for the 
poor, that their only need is a larger share of the world's wealth. 
They deserve this, and God grant that it may soon be theirs ; 
but if it comes alone they will find it no true wealth. As our 
writer says, if one is not too poor, there are great advantages in 
being poor, With, perhaps, not over-much to eat, drink, or 
wear, yet, if a man has a decent plenty, nothing need worry or 
annoy him. His sleep is sweet and his conscience at rest. 
But at any rate wealth could not promote his joys. A man's 
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth. Bless God, the human soul is too fine and high a 
thing to be satisfied with the gold that perisheth. " Thou hast 
made us for thyself, O God," cries St. Augustine, "and restless 
is our soul till it finds rest in thee." 



lessor /I. Ju^e n 



THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. 

Ecclesiastes xii: i~y; ij, 14. 
By Rev. J. F. ELDER, D. D., Albany, N. Y. 



THE author of these quaint and mystic words has just been 
giving counsel that seems almost ironical in the freedom 
which it allows : " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, 
and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk 
in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes." But 
the advice may be taken soberly in connection with the warning 
that certain judgment will attend any infraction of the laws of 
health or morals. The preacher seeks to buttress young per- 
sons' moral purpose by the injunction to remember their Crea- 
tor in the days of their youth. " Now," is a word of entreaty. 
" Remember, I pray, thy Creator." Remember him as the 
tempted Joseph did when he cried, " How shall I do this great 
wickedness and sin against God?" The best antidote to the 
perils that lurk in " Let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy 
youth" is "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth." 
A holy fear of God will chasten our .pleasures without lessening 
our enjoyment. 

Another reason for moderating the pleasures of youth by the 
fear of God is found in the stealthy but resistless approach of 
old age with its manifold infirmities and its flagging appetites. 
A well spent youth helps both to delay those evil days and to 
make more tolerable those years of infirmity of which we shall 

14 



2IO THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. [Second Quarter. 

say, " I have no pleasure in them." Then the sun and the 
light and the moon and the stars — symbols of life and happi- 
ness — will be darkened often and the clouds return with 
scarcely an interval after the rain. The misfortunes of youth 
are like a summer shower to the buoyant spirit — quickly come, 
soon gone. But in old age " storm after storm rises dark o'er 
the way," and "it never rains but it pours." Happy are they 
who have learned so to remember God when young that the 
joys of religion shall compensate for all the pains and sorrows 
of their extreme age. 

Adopting now a new figure, our writer continues to dilate on 
the multiplied evils of age, in well sustained imagery which pre- 
sents, at points, almost insoluble riddles. To understand his 
analogies let us picture a lordly castle. Sentinels stand at the 
gates ; bands of armed retainers swarm its courts ; watchers in 
the lofty turrets espy danger from afar ; in the women's quarter 
the ceaseless hum of the mill is heard grinding corn for the 
great household ; the gates are thronged with coming or 
departing guests ; huge underground cisterns give ample supply 
of water drawn from their cool depths by wheel and bucket ; 
around gushing fountains the serving maids poise the full 
pitcher gracefully upon the head ; within the lofty halls golden 
lamps hang from the ceiling by silver cords ; and all is wealth, 
luxury, power, bustle, enjoyment, life. Now imagine such a 
lordly estate in ruins, deserted by all save a few old retainers 
too timid and feeble to resist attack, and you have the basis of 
the imagery in our lesson. 

The trembling keepers of the house may well represent our 
hands, which have been so laborious for our body's weal, toil- 
ing for and defending it, till, palsied with age, they shake and 
tremble. The strong men armed, on whom feudal houses have 
rested as thrones on bayonets, will answer to our sturdy limbs 
that have supported the body for fourscore years, but totter at 
last. The failing grinders clearly point to the mouth, a natural 






lyESSON XI.] 



THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. 



grist mill, which in old age becomes sadly out of order in both 
the upper and the nether millstone. The lookers from the tur- 
ret windows are our eyes, and their darkening is the dimness 
of vision that grows with years. 

The closed doors are the organs of hearing through which 
the soul receives tidings from the outer world. In old age 
these doors are partially and sometimes altogether closed, an 
affliction second only to blindness itself. This calamity is very 
bitter. The writer dwells upon it as upon no other detail of the 
picture. He notices that the familiar sound of the domestic 
mill is scarcely heard ; that to the old man's ear it is no louder 
than a sparrow's note (" the sound of the grinding," not " he," 
is the subject of the verb : " it shall rise, or attain to, the voice 
of the bird ") ; and that the notes of the choicest singers and 
the loudest songs are all too faint for him to hear or enjoy. 

With the failure of his bodily powers, the old man's mind, 
too, loses its grip and poise. He becomes afraid of what is 
high, either in climbing or in other exertion. He who at 
eighteen gloried in putting his cap on the top of the tallest 
mast in the harbor, at eighty hesitates to mount the quarter 
deck. He is haunted, too, by imaginary fears. Calamities 
seem to impend. Lions are in his path, and he grows mor- 
bidly conservative. 

What state of mind or body is indicated by the blossoming 
almond tree is one of the darkest enigmas in the chapter. 
Perhaps the key is in Jeremiah i. n, 12. "Jeremiah, what 
seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. 
Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen : for I will 
hasten my word to perform it." The Hebrew name of the 
almond means "watching" or "early waking," because "what 
the cock is among domestic animals the almond is among trees. 
It awakes first from the sleep of winter." Hence God uses 
it as a sign of the speedy performance of his word. Hence, 
too, it is used here as a symbol of wakefulness, which is 



212 THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. (Second Quarter. 

often a concomitant of old age, especially in the form of early 
rising. 

In the old man's enfeebled condition, also, the grasshopper 
becomes a burden : the most insignificant responsibility or care 
oppresses him. And finally his flagging appetites refuse to 
respond to any stimulants. " Desire" should probably be "the 
caper-berry." The seeds of this plant are used in modern 
cookery, and the berries were, of old, supposed to have medici- 
nal virtues. But even this strong spice fails to rouse the dor- 
mant appetites. Naught remains but for the worn-out proba- 
tioner to seek the grave — his long home, so called because 
"occupied longer than any house in which he has lived " — 
while, after the fashion of the day, the hired mourners follow 
the bier through the streets with their loud cries of woe. 

Regarding this mention of the burial as parenthetic, and " or 
ever "as equivalent to "before," we come to the man's final 
dissolution, in which all this gradual decay and failing function 
finds its inevitable end. Death is here contemplated and 
described under a series of symbols at once beautiful and 
expressive. What more significant of a human life, and espe- 
cially of a masterful human life, with its cheering and radiant 
influence, than a shining lamp fed with unfailing oil, and held 
aloft that it may give light to all that are in the house — a 
golden bowl perchance hung by a silver cord ? But now the 
thread of life is severed, the silver cord is loosed, the golden 
bowl is dashed, the oil is spilled, the light goes out in darkness. 
Again, how like we are to earthen vessels filled at some exhaust- 
less fountain, as our lives are in fact supplied from the fulness 
of the Eternal ! But when the pitcher is broken at the foun- 
tain we are, so the mouthpiece of the crafty Joab phrased it, 
" as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up 
again." Or when we look at the wondrous mechanism of our 
bodies and see how life courses through them, we realize 
how apt an emblem of death is the broken wheel at the cistern's 



Lesson XI.] 



THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. 



2*3 



mouth, no longer able to draw the life-giving water from its 
depths. 

But the lamp is not the light though it helps to manifest the 
light ; the pitcher and the wheel are not the water though they 
bring it to men's lips. So body and spirit are distinct in nature 
and, for a time at least, in destiny. Broken lamp, shivered 
pitcher, shattered wheel, lifeless body are consigned to earth's 
common rubbish heap. But the immortal spirit, like the flame 
and the water spilled on ground and kissed by the sun, seeks 
the skies. There is no materialism here. The outer man 
shares the fate of kindred dust ; the inner, the real man, 
seeks the source of all spiritual life, in God. Is it pantheism ? 
Is the returning spirit absorbed in God as the falling drop is 
swallowed up in the sea? Let the doctrine of a final judgment, 
strict, personal and minute — more than hinted at here and 
clearly revealed in the New Testament — be our answer. 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, the sum of 
the whole discourse. 

The conclusion here given is not that of this particular lesson 
merely, but of the entire Book of Ecclesiastes. Its author's 
* main drift and purpose, broken indeed by many side eddies, 
now of cynical bitterness, now of worldly wisdom, now of keen 
observation, was to warn those who were yet in quest of the 
chief good, against the shoals and rocks and quicksands on 
which he had well-nigh made utter shipwreck of his faith; his 
desire was to deepen the fear of God in which he had at last 
found the anchor of his soul " (Plumptre). 

Yet his conclusion fits very well the particular portion of the 
book embraced in our lesson. "Fear God" is but another 
way of saying " Remember thy Creator" with the threatened 
judgments which follow. The one injunction precedes the 
other ; while the infirmities and sorrows of old age so pictur- 
esquely set forth may, so far as they are premature, be a part of 
the very judgment against which we are warned. These con- 



2i4 tMe creator Remembered, [second Quarter. 

siderations, then, drawn from our lesson, go to support the 
exhortation to early piety with which it opens. 

i. The manifold infirmities of old age. 

To be sure* we may not live to become old, but so much the 
more do we need to remember our Creator in the days of our 
youth. The alternative is certain : either a premature death, 
or the common lot of age. And what can be sadder than to 
feel that all the pleasure of vigorous health has forever passed 
away and naught is left but the contemplation of inevitable and 
unceasing decay, and certain death without hope. How pitiful 
is the plea of the loyal Barzillai to be excused from the oppres- 
sive gratitude of his king. " How long have I to live that I 
should go up with the king unto Jerusalem. I am this day 
fourscore years old, and can I discern between good and evil? 
Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink ? Can I hear 
any more the voice of singing men and singing women? 
Wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my 
lord the king?" How sweet to those so broken, on whom 
every earthly pleasure has palled, is the comfort of a christian 
hope : to know that inasmuch as they have remembered their 
Creator in their youth, their Creator does not forget them in 
time of old age. Then, too, how small the likelihood that if 
one has neglected his Creator in the days of his youth he 
will change when he is old. Habits are confirmed, prejudices 
hardened, will power fixed as regards the world but weak 
toward God, and the whole spiritual nature shares the dead- 
ness of the body. We may repeat the question of Nicode- 
mus, with a single added word, " How can a man be born 
again when he is old? " 

2. The possible perils of a youth unrestrained by the fear of 
God. 

Most young men are ready to fall in with the counsel 
" Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of 
thine heart." " But know thou for all these things God will 



Ussson XI.] THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. 21$ 

bring thee into judgment." Youth indeed is the time for joy, 
for hope, for love, for pleasure. It comes but once ; let a man 
make the most of it. But mark this stern threat of judgment 
suspended over us like the sword of Damocles. It is not alone 
the final judgment that we are to fear, but the more immedi- 
ate consequences of transgression as well, among which may 
be the premature experience of decrepitude. Every day is a 
judgment day. Never forget that we are made and live under 
law ; that if we transgress in our pleasures we must suffer. 
Get all possible fragrance out of life's roses, but beware of 
thorns. Nemesis sits in every house of pleasure. Do not 
spend your youth so as to incur remorse and shame and pain. 
The surest safeguard for any young man is the fear of God. 
" Rejoice, O young man in thy youth " turns us out into a 
broad pasture of pleasures. " Remember thy Creator " is a 
silken tether that checks us if we approach too near the bounds 
of danger. "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What 
soever a man soweth that shall he also reap." 

3. Religion is the supreme good of young men as of all. 
It "never was designed to make our (rational) pleasures less." 
" Fear God and keep his commandments ; for this is the whole 
duty of man." "Duty" is not in the Hebrew. Religion is 
the whole of man, his summum bonum. We were made for 
God and never attain wholeness of being till we find it in him. 
Life is a partial, distorted thing apart from God. Religion is 
not merely something to be lived, but life itself. " The whole 
of man " is life, as it is the whole of God. Young man, you 
want to " see life." Then see God, through personal purity 
and fidelity to the divine commands. You will thus see life in 
such wise that you will hunger no more for the pleasures that 
only kill. You will come up from the darksome crypt to 
worship in the whole vast temple of your being, consecrated in 
its wholeness, from inmost shrine to fretted vault and gleaming 
pinnacle, to him who is the proper Fear of man. 



2l6 THE CREATOR REMEMBERED. [Second Quarter. 

4. The solemn meeting of the soul with God. " The spirit 
shall return to God who gave it." The very words imply an 
accounting for the use of what was given. What a meeting 
will it be : that unveiled vision oL God. What manner of 
address will the Father of Spirits have for his returning child ? 
O, Spirit of a mortal, I sent thee forth to achieve thy destiny 
immortal. I welcome thy return. How fared thy pilgrimage 
on earth ? I sent thee to dwell in prison house of clay that 
thou mightest therein do me service and fit thyself for larger 
mansions. I gave thee arms with which to help thy fellows. 
Hast thou wrought only for self? I gave thee strong limbs to 
bear thee where thou wouldest go. Have they led thee only 
into paths of sin? I gave thee eyes like pools in Heshbon, 
wherewith my glories to behold in earth and sky and sea. 
Hast thou bent those eyes on vanity? I gave thee ears to 
hear, to drink in all sweet melodies and to hearken to my word. 
Have they been deaf to my entreaties? I gave thee lips to 
sing my praise, or voice thy prayer, or utter words of consola- 
tion to thy weeping brother. Have they been filled with bit- 
terness and cursing, and used to set on fire the course of nature ? 
Were thy members servants to uncleanness? Or didst thou 
make them instruments of righteousness to God? Thy proba- 
tion in that house of clay is ended and thou hast come home to 
judgment. Mansions fair await thee, or a prison house more 
dark than that in which thy mortal clay is slumbering. Thou 
must abide with God if thou hast grown like God : or with the 
devil and his angels if they on earth have been thy guides. 
Thy fellow-in-the-flesh — the Nazarene — shall be thy judge. 
He triumphed over earth and flesh and evil spirit, and set thee 
an example brave, and grace to thee did proffer for thy victory. 
These words, or the equivalent of them, all of us now strong 
and blooming with youth are one day to hear. " Remember, 
I pray, thy Creator in the days of thy youth." 



lessor? Jtil. Jui}e 18. 



MESSIAH'S KINGDOM. 
Malachi Hi: 1-12. 

By Rev. R. H. PITT, D. D., Richmond, Va. 

THERE is something very interesting and almost pathetic 
in the growing intensity of the Messianic hope among 
the Jews. Though long deferred it seems to feed upon 
delay and to be strengthened by disappointment. The influ- 
ence of this hope is interwoven with their history and is a 
potent factor in the formation of their national character. 
Leaving this out of view we should fail to secure an intelligent 
notion of this strange people and of the influential part they 
have borne in the world's history. There are many prophecies 
unmistakably Messianic, utterances that have no meaning if 
they are not so interpreted. We believe it can be shown that 
in general these prophetic utterances grow in plainness and 
directness in proportion to the prophets' nearness to the advent 
of the Messiah. Certainly the passage under consideration is 
not surpassed in these qualities by any other. There are pre- 
dictions of the Messiah more elaborate, but none more specific, 
more clear in their reference to the new dispensation. 

This does not surprise us. We should naturally expect that 
the last of the race of prophets, with whose words the canon of 
the Old Scriptures closes, between whom and the coming of 
the Messiah only four centuries intervened, would see with 
most unclouded vision and speak with least uncertain sound. 



2t8 Messiah's kingdom. [second quar^r. 

The earlier seers had stood in the morning twilight. They 
knew that the day was coming and they said so. But it was 
gray dawn which they saw and the chill of the night was still 
upon them. The sky of our prophet's vision was rosy and 
blushing, and stray beams of light were already coming over 
the eastern hills. It is Malachi who brings the cheering and 
comforting assurance : " Unto you that fear his name shall the 
Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings." 

THE FORERUNNER. 

There are other prophetic utterances concerning that unique 
and admirable person who was to link together in his office and 
his work the old and new covenants. But in none of them is 
he more plainly pointed out than here. The passage at Isaiah 
xl. 3, is hardly so clear as this in its reference to John the Bap- 
tist. The Baptist is a singularly noble and striking figure and 
has scarcely received the attention to which he is entitled. 
This was inevitable, since he was so quickly followed by 
another whose peerless personality dwarfed and obscured him. 
He recognized his fate, and rejoiced with a loyal manliness 
beyond all praise, that One whom he came to announce, whose 
shoe-latchet he was unworthy to loose, " must increase " while 
the voice which made the announcement grew " faint and far." 
But it ought never to be forgotten that the Master himself said, 
"... there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." 
The finest quality of courage, the best type of self-abnegation, 
all the virtues without any of the vices of asceticism, a rare and 
beautiful blending of sternness and submissiveness — these were 
among the features of a character which must always command 
our unqualified respect. John prepared the way of the Lord 
by direct announcement. "There cometh one after me," he 
said, and proceeded to describe him. And when at length he 
came, John cried " Behold the Lamb of God ! " 






tisssoN xii.] Messiah's kingdom. 219 

But he also made preparation for the coming of the Messiah 
by the character of his preaching, the substance of which was 
a call to repentance, and the announcment of the nearness of 
the Kingdom of Heaven. 

THE SUDDENNESS OF MESSIAH'S COMING. 

It seems a little strange that, after centuries of weary watching 
and waiting, without bating one jot of heart or hope, despite 
national misfortune amounting almost at times to national 
annihilation, now when the day drew near, the people to whom 
the promises were given should be unprepared for Messiah's 
advent ; that a special messenger should have to be sent to assure 
them of it, and that even he could not make them ready. 
The growing clearness and intensity of general prophetic utter- 
ances, and the Voice itself crying in the wilderness, were alike 
so unavailing that the Lord came "suddenly." 

And this, too, although the prophet represents them as 
seeking and delighting in him who was to come — " The Lord 
whom ye seek " is about to appear, he said ; " even the messen- 
ger of the covenant whom ye delight in." Some old com- 
mentators tell us that these expressions are ironical. They may 
be right. Certainly few were actually seeking Jesus when he 
came, and few delighted in him after he had come. For the 
multitude " there was no beauty in him that they should desire 
him," and " no form or comeliness " in him when they saw him. 
Seek him and delight in him indeed ! From the day that 
Joseph and Mary fled with the Child to Egypt until that woeful 
day when his pursuers found their diabolical delight in stand- 
ing about his tortured body, wagging their heads in scorn and 
hate, and saying, " Let him come down from the cross : he 
saved others, himself he cannot save," they only sought him to 
do him harm. 

And yet there was and there still is in a deep and real sense 



220 Messiah's kingdom. [second quarter. 

a seeking for him, a delighting in him. He is rightly named 
the Desire of all nations. Through hardness of heart, the 
vision of " his own " was blinded, and " his own received him 
not." But " had they known it they would not have crucified 
the Lord of Glory." He himself said : " Father, forgive them, 
they know not what they do." It is not unreasonable, and it 
does not lessen their guilt, since their blindness was self-imposed, 
to think that their hatred of Jesus was due in part to a misap- 
prehension of his character and aims. 

THE PURPOSE OF HIS COMING. 

He is the " Messenger of the Covenant," of the new cov- 
enant of grace and mercy. The prime object of his coming 
is to promulgate and to seal this new compact which is to dis- 
place the old. But following the emphasis of the prophet, let 
us consider the function of the Messianic office on which he 
lays especial stress. The fact that this particular feature of 
Christ's mission is more or less misunderstood and obscured in 
our own time, makes it all the more important that we should 
pay attention to it. 

The prophet uses three figures, all of them familiar and 
significant. The coming One is like fuller's soap ; he is like a 
refiner's fire, and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. 
There is probably no ground for the notion that these figures 
indicate various kinds of cleansing, such as outward and 
inward. It is, however, worthy of remark that in one figure he 
is the refiner's fire, and in another he is the refiner himself. 

The prophet seems unwilling to figure him under the guise 
solely of mere material agents. But the whole passage, freed 
from fanciful interpretation, teaches that Christ came to purify, 
and to purify in part by destroying, and that this destruction 
was an element in the process of restoration. For this purpose 
was the Son of God manifest, that he might destroy the works 



Lesson XII.] MESSIAH'S KINGDOM. 2 2 1 

of the Devil. This work of cleansing was to begin with the 
sons of Levi, the priesthood, the religious leaders and teachers. 
It seems to be true — and it is a solemn and startling truth — 
that whenever corruption of morals or doctrine prevails, the 
grossest immorality and the most deadly heresy are to be found 
among the priestly class, among the religious leaders and 
teachers of the time. The best type of character that any 
system of religion can produce, and the worst as well, will be 
found among the priests and the preachers. In the Jewish 
economy, the prophetical office, which was largely sporadic and 
irregular, was necessary to supplement, and also, in no small 
degree, to oppose the influence of the priesthood. That Jesus 
found the worst corruption in the priesthood is seen in the fact 
that his gentle spirit never waxed so hotly indignant as when he 
dealt with priests. Then, indeed, his righteous wrath flamed 
out and he was a refiner's fire ! But his mission of purification 
was not confined to Scribes and Pharisees, to Priests and Levites. 
It was for all the people and all the ages. He was not simply 
and merely a Saviour, to die a sacrificial death, out of which 
hope of forgiveness and of heaven was to come. This he was, 
but he was something more. He had a doctrine for the life 
which now is as well as for that which is to come. His relig- 
ion was not mere " morality touched with emotion." It was 
morality based on eternal, unchanging principles, and interfused 
with, baptised in, the deepest and holiest emotions of which 
our regenerated natures are capable. Only we must not forget 
that it was morality, of the sternest, loftiest, gentlest, purest 
type, that character and conduct are always prominent and 
eminent in the view which it takes of human duty and destiny. 
Be not misled by the common and thoughtless talk of an 
" old gospel." The gospel which does not touch and cleanse 
and purify every department of life is not the " old gospel." 
The gospel which has no helpful sympathy for those who 
suffer wrong, and no righteous anger for those who do wrong, 



222 Messiah's kingdom. [second quarter. 

is not the old gospel. The gospel that condones sin, that com- 
promises with evil, that is guiltily silent in the presence of social, 
political and commercial wrongs, is a new gospel, and whosoever 
preaches it will be anathema maranatha. The Messiah whose 
claims the " old gospel " sets forth, and whose doctrine it 
records, sits as a refiner and purifier of silver. He is like a 
refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. The prophets themselves 
were never so severe in the rebuke of wrong-doers as he was. 
He was a swift and terrible witness against all such. And if 
his churches wish truly to reflect his spirit they must take his 
position. There are now, as in the time of the prophet, adul- 
terers, false swearers, those who oppress the hireling in his wages, 
who wrong the widow and orphan, who turn aside the stranger 
from his right ; and if they will not fear God, they ought at 
least to be made to regard man. That " all will be elsewise 
by-and-by " is a cheap variety of comfort which we ought to 
be ashamed to administer so long as the wrongs for which we 
offer consolation may be speedily remedied. 

There are two errors to which the present generation of 
Christians are exposed, and against which we need to be 
warned. One is that already discussed : the assumption, much 
more general than we are disposed to think, that Christianity 
has nothing to do with the social order, with political, national 
or commercial life. The other is the supposition that in the 
attempt to purify, to refine, to reform, we have no need of 
Christ or his religion. The former of these is fatal to the true 
mission of Christ, the latter is equally fatal to the success of the 
attempt to purify. The source of moral defection and corrup- 
tion is indicated in this prophecy : The wrong -doers fear not 
God. They rob God. They depart from his ordinances. 
The process of purification which the Messiah adopts is indi- 
cated further on. He begins at the foundation, he lays the axe 
to the root of the tree, he looks beyond the symptoms to the 
seat of the malady and calls upon the wanderers to return to 



Lesson XII.] MESSIAH'S KINGDOM. 223 

God. The fear of the Lord in the large and significant sense 
of this phrase, as used in the Scriptures, is not only the begin- 
ning of wisdom ; it is also the beginning of moral purification. 

THE MERCIFUL MESSIAH. 

The Messiah is restorer as well as destroyer. The fuller's 
soap, in the process of cleansing, removes the soil and stain 
but leaves the fabric unhurt, the refiner's fire burns out the 
dross but leaves the silver white and shining. Jesus has always 
something to propose in the place of that which he opposes. 
He is no mere iconoclast. His denunciation of evil and of 
evildoers is not mere indulgence in the luxury of passionate 
hate. He cleanses the fabric, he purifies the silver, and both are 
the better and the world is the better for the process. And as 
the refiner watches with unflagging interest the glowing fire, the 
shining metal, the consuming dross, so the Lord watches the 
process of purification. If providential trials are symbolized 
by the fire, they are to be regarded as so many voices calling 
those who pass through them to repentance. And the call to 
repentance, whether it come in the form of providential deal- 
ing or of direct message from God's word or God's servant, 
always carries with it the promise of abounding blessing. 
When it is obeyed, when the people begin to fear God and 
work righteousness, the shadow of the curse is lifted, the blight 
disappears from field and vineyard, heaven's windows are 
opened, the founts of divine mercy are broken up, and blessings 
beyond the capacity to receive them are poured out. 

Several practical reflections ought to be noted in conclusion. 

1. May not this hasty glance at the prophet's conception of 
Messiah give us a somewhat more exalted view of Christ? 
Ought we not to regard it as a part of his mission and so 
of his churches' mission, to right existing wrongs of every sort ? 
It is even now a time of great unrest and agitation. There 
are wrongs in the social order ; there is corruption in political 



224 Messiah's kingdom. [second quarter. 

life ; there is national unrighteousness ; wild, feverish and godless 
gambling is rife in the commercial world. Ought we as dis- 
ciples or as ministers of Christ to be indifferent to these ? Has 
the Messiah no message now of sympathy for the wronged 
and oppressed and of inexorable condemnation for the oppres- 
sors? 

2. Let us carefully note and faithfully follow Christ's method 
of meeting and dealing with wrong doing. Call back the 
wrong-doers to the fear of God, the beginning of wisdom and 
of personal righteousness. Rebuke, entreat, exhort with all 
long-suffering, but remember that all is in vain so long as God 
is not feared. 

3. Let us believe in the power of Christ to heal the hurts 
of a sore and weary world. Let us be sure that once the 
fundamental law of his gospel is obeyed, wrongs will vanish and 
humanity will be one vast brotherhood. For this he died. 

4. And if his gospel has within it this refining and purifying 
influence, if it is the foe of the oppressor and the friend of the 
oppressed, how dare we as we honor him withhold it from the 
perishing nations whose need of it is so deep and who as yet 
have not heard of it ? 

From the beginning of this discourse I have not talked of 
the other world. This silence is not due to any sympathy with 
the philosopher who said impatiently, " There is no other 
world. Here and now is the only fact." Far from it. But I 
have felt profoundly that in the prophetic conception of 
Messiah, in the Messiah's conception of his own mission, in 
the gospel of Christ, this world with its wrongs needing to be 
righted, with its burdens waiting to be lightened, with its 
oppressed and down-trodden ones crying for relief, this tangible 
world of the " here and now," fills a very large place. And 
when we get our Lord's conception of what needs to be done 
and his power to accomplish it we shall be more anxious to 
give his gospel to them that are perishing without it. 



THE THIRD QUARTER. 



LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF PAUL. 



Lesson 
I. 


July 


II. 


«< 


III. 


(( 


IV. 


<< 


V. 


n 


VI. 


August 


VII. 


«< 


VIII. 


<< 


IX. 


<t 



2. " Paul called to Europe." — Acts xvi: 6-15. 
Rev. Professor B. O. True. 

9. " Paul at Philippi. " — Acts xvi: 19-34. Rev. 

B. K. Chandler, D. D. 

16. ' ' Paul at Athens." — Acts xvii: 22-31. Rev. 

C. J. Baldwin. 

23. "Paul at Corinth." — Acts xviii: 1-17. 
Rev. Professor Rush Rhees. 

30. "Paul at Bphesus." — Acts xix: 1-12. 
Rev. W. W. Everts. 

6. " Paul at Miletus. " — Acts xx: 22-35. Rev. 
J. R. Gow. 

13. "Paul at Jerusalem." — Acts xxi: 27-39. 
Rev. Professor J. M. English, D. D. 

20. "Paul before Felix." — Acts xxiv: 10-25. 
Rev. Thomas E. Bartlett. 

27. " Paul before Agrippa. " — Actsxxvi: 19-32. 
Rev. H. M. King, D. D. 

X. September 3. "Paul Shipwrecked." — Acts xxvii: 30-44. 
Rev. W. S. Apsey, D. D. 

XI. " 10. "Paul at Rome." — Acts xxviii: 20-31. 

Rev. John H. Mason. 

XII. " 17. " Personal Responsibility." — Rom. xiv: 12- 

23. Rev. T. D. Anderson. 



lessoi? I. July 2. 



PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. 

Ads xvi: 6-15. 
By Rev. Professor B. O. TRUE, D. D., Rochester, N. Y. 

THIS sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains 
the first known record concerning the advent of Christ's 
gospel in Europe. It is not likely that this is due to the 
paucity of our information. While there may possibly have 
been scattered Christians at Rome and perhaps at some other 
points in Europe before Paul left Asia, this is far from certain ; 
while it is certain that such believers, if there were any, were 
very few, unorganized and unaggressive. From a human point 
of view, till the Apostle of the Gentiles began work at Philippi, 
there was absolutely no prospect that Europe would be converted 
to the faith of Jesus. His coming was therefore a crisis, a turn- 
ing of the tide in the affairs of men. 

Paul's call to Europe is one of the decisive events in human 
history. 

Asia, Europe and America embrace the nations which repre- 
sent respectively the highest civilization of the past, the present 
and the future. The spread of civilization from Asia to Europe 
and its propagation from the old world to the new, mark the 
most notable epochs in all history. The importance of these 
and similar cardinal occurrences is almost never appreciated 
even by historians, far less by ordinary people. Pivotal deeds 
in the life of mankind are often almost ignored, while an 
unwarranted importance is ascribed to romantic and hazardous 



23O PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. [Thirb Quarter. 

adventures. The discovery of America, four hundred years 
ago, and the settlement of the colonies, later, were scarcely 
more significant for the new world than the contributions of the 
Orient to European civilization. The classical nations of 
Southern Europe owed much to Egyptians, Phoenicians and the 
ancient Aryans, but the more definitely known impact of Asia 
against Europe at a later date is much more impressive and far 
more often emphasized. In their strife for the mastery of the 
ancient world, great warriors and armies hold a large place in 
political history, yet their permanent influence upon the ruling 
nations of modern civilization was insignificant compared with 
that of the single apostolic missionary who was at Troas sum- 
moned from his work in Asia to the evangelization of Europe. 
There are few places so rich in their association with human 
emotion, thought and action, as the shores of the water-ways 
which separate Southeastern Europe from West Asia. Apart 
from Egypt, the Holy Land and a few historic cities like Rome, 
no portion of the earth is in historic interest comparable with 
this. Hereabouts the human mind first became reflective, and 
here it attained the most perfect flower and fruitage of its pre- 
christian culture. Croesus, Midas and Mausolus, the native 
kings of Lydia, Phrygia and Caria, in Asia Minor, by their 
fabulous wealth impressed their names upon the languages of 
the civilized world. The Grecian colonies which sprang up 
east of the Aegean were in the arts and sciences scarcely 
inferior to the mother country. They counted among their 
citizens Homer, Thales, Herodotus, Hippocrates and Apelles — 
princes respectively in poetry, philosophy, history, medicine 
and painting. A few miles from the Troas of Paul was the site 
of ancient Troy, where the first great conflict of Greeks with 
Asiatics inspired Homer's immortal Iliad, written in the tongue 
which, enriched by later poets, philosophers and scholars, 
Alexander was to carry over all the East. Pergamos, famous 
for its library of two hundred thousand volumes, was not far ' 



LESSON I.] 



PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. 



231 



distant. Five hundred years before Paul, the fleet of Darius 
sailed from Saraos to the bay of Marathon. A decade later 
the immense army of Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, proud and 
confident of victory, yet destined to utter defeat at Salamis and 
Platsea. Later, Alexander the Great passed the Hellespont 
with 35,000 men and began his gigantic conquest of the East, 
so full of importance for all subsequent history. Unconscious 
of his mission, he spread throughout the Orient that language 
more perfectly fitted for transmitting to posterity the record of 
Christ's words and work than any other ever known, the lan- 
guage in which Paul was to write his matchless letters, John his 
gospel of love, and Luke his book of apostolic deeds. Troas 
Alexandria, whence Paul set sail for Europe, was one of nearly 
twenty cities which bore the great conqueror's name. Nearly 
three hundred years after Paul's vision there, Constantine fixed 
upon Troas as a site for the new capital of the Roman Empire, 
though finally selecting Byzantium, which he named Constan- 
tinople. Here and at Nicaea, Chalcedon and Ephesus, the 
first general councils of the Church were held, witnessing those 
doctrinal discussions which agitated Christendom and the 
Roman Empire. Three centuries later Mohammedans took 
possession of these shores, forcing Christianity in self-defence 
to push its missions among the Teutonic tribes of Northern 
Europe. Constantinople, however, long saved from the Mos- 
lems and a providential conservator of Greek learning, scattered 
the rich treasures thereof throughout the West, thus giving to the 
Teutons the impetus and inspiration which at last issued in the 
Protestant Reformation. And when this reformation was on and 
the Protestants were in desperate straits, from Constantinople as 
a Moslem capital issued those Turkish hordes whose timely 
attacks upon the Catholic Emperor, Charles V, saved Protes- 
tantism from re-subjection to the Roman Church. 

The deeds of these temporal conquerors were "with confused 
noise and garments rolled in blood," but in the obscurity and 



232 PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. [Third Quarter. 

solemn stillness of a night, a summons aroused the Missionary 
to the Gentiles, more momentous in its results than all the 
marching and counter-marching of earth's armies. In fact, to 
the European work of Paul, so sublime as the proclamation of 
heaven's redemptive work for the western continents, all those 
other historic movements were ancillary and subordinate. For 
that, in the providence of God. Asia was hellenized, taught 
the language and the modes of thought which qualified it to 
adopt christian truth. For it the Roman Caesars consolidated 
and unified diverse nations, while the universal peace secured 
by the imperial administration rendered possible the extended 
missionary travels of Paul and his compeers, rapidly spreading 
the good news of the divine kingdom through Rome's entire 
domain, which then comprised the whole civilized world. 

As Christ was the ganglion to which all important forces in 
human history before him converged, and through which, 
clarified and corrected, they again diverged to develop the dis- 
tinctive elements of christian civilization, so Paul stood at the 
parting of the waters between Asia and Europe, in some sense 
the continuator of Christ's work. About that historic bound- 
ary clashed the great antagonistic powers of the ancient world. 
At this tragic meeting place of Asiatic and European influ- 
ences, all the decisive forces of antecedent history seem to 
have centered in the person of Paul. From him and from the 
impress of the truth which he brought to Europe, all that is 
best worthy of permanent preservation in human history pro- 
ceeded. In the strange providence of God, who makes " the 
wrath of man to praise him," Christian and Turk, Romanist 
and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, believers and infidels, the 
worldly ambition of rulers, no less than the fanatical supersti- 
tion of multitudes, have been compelled to subserve the procla- 
mation and the perpetuation among men of Christ's gospel. 

Paul's experience before and after his passage to Europe is 
typical of true and effective christian work in all ages, 



Lesson I.] PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. 233 

Some features of this experience are particularly instructive. 
Paul's call to Europe was divine. After that night vision at 
Troas he did not enter Europe seeking God's blessing upon 
any work that was merely his. He went to do the work of 
God. "When he had seen the vision, straightway we sought 
to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us 
to preach the gospel unto them." 

To Paul this, like that at his conversion, was a heavenly 
vision, revealing the will of God. It may have been mediated 
by the Apostle's previous knowledge and experience, possibly 
by the vivid reproduction in his memory of the dress, appear- 
ance and words of some Macedonian traveler who had 
described to Paul the religious destitution of Europe. Yet the 
agency of the Holy Spirit in the vision is clearly recognized. 
The Spirit of Jesus hastened the journey to Troas, not suffering 
delay by permitting the Apostle to turn to the right into 
Bithynia or to the left into Southwestern Asia. Unmistakable 
now was the impression that he must at once change the place 
of his labors from Asia to Europe. 

It is an invaluable inspiration for an actor at the commence- 
ment of any great or important undertaking to be assured that 
he is divinely called and will be divinely guided in his work. 
Our personal plans and preferences may be so subservient to a 
supreme desire to serve others that we may of right consider 
ourselves as really called of God to specific places of service as 
we are to his general work. Paul sought and received such 
divine guidance. When the Jews would not hear he turned to 
the Gentiles. When the nearer Gentiles were obdurate and 
hostile, he turned to " the regions beyond." 

But while Paul's call to Europe was of God it was also a call 
from men. One of the best proofs that God calls us to a given 
work is that men bid us to the same. The Macedonians did 
not realize how greatly they needed Paul. But God knew 
and Paul soon knew how greatly Pagan Europe needed the 



234 PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. [Third Quarter. 

gospel, Athens with its speculative philosophy, and Rome with 
its luxury and worldliness. Peter and the other Apostles could 
bear the gospel to the scattered Jews and to the Gentiles of 
Asia. But there was no christian apostle in Europe, and they 
of Europe perished for the gospel no less surely than Asiatics. 

Every true missionary is sent of God because there is some 
human need of his presence in the place whither he goes. The 
perusal of Cook's "Voyages " and the godlessness of the South 
Sea Islanders impelled Carey to his foreign work. Judson was 
drawn to Burmah by the lost condition of the great Asiatic 
nations. Contemporaries called these men deluded adventur- 
ers, enthusiasts ; but a century of missionary history approves 
their devotion as rational and heroic. Like Paul, they based 
their action on no wild fancy, but on undeniable fact. They 
could afford to work and to wait. The unsupplied need of 
multitudes of their fellow-men, a pressing and imperative 
demand not met, called for a supply. That was the unanswer- 
able economic justification of the ancient as it is of the modern 
foreign missionary enterprise. It was the reason for the great 
commission. 'There is nothing arbitrary or capricious in that 
all-embracing command. It is a recognition of the great law : 
where sin abounds grace superabounds. 

In this light the Macedonian call is a typical cry for the 
gospel. It was God's call issued through men's needs and 
men's lips. It was a cry for help. So long as mortals dwell 
under the shadow of sin, misfortune and death, they will raise 
appeals to their more favored fellows for physical, mental and 
spiritual help. God pity those who steel themselves never to 
regard such voices ! Habitual neglect, indifference and stolid- 
ity may render some who most need to cry, unconscious of their 
state. Men can become so discouraged or desperate that 
passivity and silence may take the place of demonstration. 
But the eloquence of a need so profound that it is unconscious 
of its depth has a pathos all its own. 



Lesson I.] PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. 



2 35 



Behold this world to-day with its marvelous resources and 
privileges so unequally distributed. In every land human 
beings are reaching out to others stronger and more fortunate, 
for enlightenment, comfort and healing. Yet what picture of 
possible material need can be so pathetic as that of either 
youth or age passing into the valley of the great shadow " with- 
out God in the world," with no assuring word from Christ 
showing unto the victims his Father and our Father ! Our 
brothers who worship an unknown God wait for us to declare 
unto them the true and living God. It is the cry of the ages. 
God grant that it may make itself heard until every member of 
the race has accepted the glorious gospel. 

We have seen that the call of Paul to Europe was a divine 
call, that it was an expression of human need and that it was a 
typical cry. Observe now its reception. The summons was at 
once recognized and obeyed. From the beginning of his 
christian life to its close Paul was delicately responsive to every 
indication of God's will. This was the chief secret of his 
power. The first question of his christian experience was 
"What shall I do, Lord?" When he described his conversion 
to King Agrippa, years after its occurrence, he added, " I was 
not disobedient to the heavenly vision." It was true. Those 
first hours of ready obedience were followed by further enlight- 
enment, until habitual obedience to the will of God insured 
repeated heavenly visions. Paul made plans for his journeys 
but they were always subject to revision. They were repeatedly 
modified as the spirit directed. So far from being self-sufficient 
or self-centered Paul welcomed heavenly guidance, and in that 
attitude always received the blessing which he craved. 

Woe be to the man who never has a heavenly vision, to whom 
life is eating and drinking, buying, selling and getting gain ; 
who has no high and holy mission, whose plans begin and end 
with himself and his selfish interests ! A double woe to him 
who sees across his path a work of God, beholds an open door 



236 PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. [Third Quarter. 

of glorious opportunity and privilege, and, refusing to enter, is 
disobedient to the heavenly vision ! True men seek first of all 
to know and do God's will. They are less anxious to push 
their own plans to success than to be efficient in the execution 
of God's. During the darkest crisis of the civil war, at a time 
of solemn and almost desperate interest, a trusted counsellor 
said to the President, " I hope the Lord is on our side." With 
the reverent pathos which was characteristic of him, and with 
the profoundest philosophy, Mr. Lincoln replied, " I hope we 
are on the Lord's side." In that spirit Paul went to Europe. 

With such a conviction every real missionary work must be 
prosecuted. Of work so undertaken the success is certain. 
Obstacles can only intensify the conflict, and no contingencies 
can prevent ultimate victory. The fulfilment of any man's 
private plans is unimportant, but it is of the first importance 
for every man to conform his life to the plan of God. The 
immediate results of such activity may appear humble and even 
discouraging ; but the worker may be assured that no real work 
for God can fail. As God lives it will be established and its 
results be everlasting. Paul's first convert in Europe was a 
woman ; but her home, Thyatira, became the seat of one of 
the seven churches of Asia, and very likely Lydia was instru- 
mental in its formation. Our Lord astonished his disciples by 
a prolonged conversation with a woman at Jacob's well, but 
that noonday instruction prepared for the work of Philip the 
Evangelist and the great gospel joy which soon filled the city 
of Samaria. Paul's fidelity caused his imprisonment at Phil- 
ippi, but, as with Joseph, the prison became a place of more 
than royal triumph. It witnessed the jailer's conversion and 
the Apostle's speedy release. 

Little did Paul know of the future christian civilization of 
Europe. Yet he moved forward step by step, following daily 
light and daily guidance, confident that by his life and labors 
or by his death his mission would certainly succeed. The 



Lesson I»l PAUL CALLED TO EUROPE. 237 

vision which called him to Europe revealed the tragic need of 
immediate help for men, but it did not unveil the centuries of 
christian history during which the truth declared by Paul was to 
move the dominant nations of the world and make them the con- 
ductors of christian truth to the remotest parts of the earth. In 
the sublime faith which did not " ask to see the distant scene/* 
Paul repeated the experience of ancient patriarchs and prophets. 
He anticipated those moral heroes of the christian centuries 
— the evangelists, philanthropists and patriots — who in great 
emergencies have " endured as seeing him who is invisible." 
These men of strong discriminating faith in what shall and 
must be, the men who are fellow-workers with God, are the men 
who accomplish the Herculean tasks in the world's advance. 
They work with resistless power because they work with faith. 
They can be patient when others are disheartened. The cer- 
tainty of final success robs opposition of its chief power. Such 
confidence of faith inspired Wiclif to speak at the peril of his 
life, Huss to die for the truth, Luther to take his stand against 
the established Church and in favor of a movement as yet 
unorganized and uncertain of a future. That faith sent the 
Pilgrim Fathers to the New World, and sustained them through- 
out that dreadful winter when half their number died of 
exposure and want. By faith and against worldly appearances 
Carey and Judson planted modern Foreign Missions. Crom- 
well, Washington, Lincoln and Cavour had it too ; that is why 
men remember them. Such men are the true seers and saints, 
the genuine statesmen and patriots of earth. Over selfish 
adventurers like Cortez and Pizarro, or ambitious warriors like 
the first Napoleon, these men tower in moral grandeur like 
Chimborazo over the ant-heaps at its base. There is no surer 
mark of greatness than the vision — which Jesus had, and Paul, 
shared by other prophets and saints in their measure — that 
this or this or this is God's way, though the world with univocal 
bray cries, " Fool." 



lessor? II. July 9. 



PAUL AT PHJXIPPI. 

Acts xvi: 19-34. 

By Rev. E. K. CHANDLER, D. D., Warren, R. I. 

THE absorbing interest of this dramatic passage culminates 
at two points, which surpass all others in profound signifi- 
cance and deep spiritual instruction, viz. : 

I. The Great Question, What must I do to be saved? 

II. The Great Answer, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I. The place. Philippi was a place of peculiar interest to 
the classically educated Paul. Undoubtedly he was familiar 
with its monumental history, representing as it did two mighty 
nations, which had contended for the glory of its possession. 

He had studied the records of the flaming deeds of Alexan- 
der the Great ; he knew the pride of his ambitious father, Philip 
of Macedon, to whose sagacity the city owed its name and its 
glory. 

The region was eloquent of heroic deeds and famous battles, 
which doubtless he rehearsed as he pointed out the paths by 
which the republican army entered, the ridge on which stood 
the camps of Brutus and Cassius, the marsh crossed by Antony 
as he approached his antagonist, the hill where Cassius died by 
his own hand, and other scenes rich in historic interest. 

As Paul and Silas walked out beneath the triumphal arch, 
which commemorated the great victory of Philippi ninety-four 
years before, to the place of prayer upon the bank of the 



LeSson II.] * PAUL AT PHILIPPI. 239 

Gangites, they may have spoken of these heroic memories of 
the past. 

But no such incentive was necessary to incite them on to a 
grander warfare. Their mission was not that of the historian 
or the poet. Theirs was a nobler struggle upon the shores of 
the new continent, a struggle for a spiritual dominion. The 
weapons of their warfare were not carnal " but mighty through 
God to the pulling down of strongholds, and bringing into cap- 
tivity everything to the obedience of Christ." They proposed 
to found a more enduring empire than that of the Caesars. 

The collision. The impending conflict soon began. Avarice 
was the principle first assailed, the stronghold first to feel the 
shock of attack by the soldiers of the cross. To be sure, it 
was clothed in heathen superstition, but the principle is the 
same whether in pagan or in christian garb. For unholy gain 
a poor Pythoness, a " female slave " who was possessed with 
"a spirit of divination," had brought "much profit " to her 
employers, by appealing to the credulity of the Philippians. 
Her frenzied ravings, though attesting the genuineness of the 
Apostles' divine commission and the truth of their message, 
were offensive to them and injurious to the cause they advo- 
cated. The exorcism of the demon which was supposed to 
control her was a bold interference with the business of her 
greedy employers, and a stern rebuke of the deliberate fraud by 
which they were getting rich. The first bolt of the conflict 
with paganism was hurled against dishonest money getting. 
This shot fired the heart of the enemy as an attack upon the 
pocket-book usually will. The battle was on. 

Incidents. In quick succession follow the arrest, the drag- 
ging to the forum, the false indictment before the civil magis- 
trates, an early instance of the unholy alliance of Church and 
State, the demand of the enraged mob, the judgment of the 
easily bribed court, the inhuman scourging, and, finally, the 
deliverance to the strict guardianship of a barbarous jailer 



24O PAUL AT PHILim. [Third Quarter. 

who, in perfect sympathy with the furious persecutors, cast them 
into an inner, dark and damp dungeon, their feet secured in 
the hard, unyielding wood. The midnight has come, the 
lonely watchman walks his appointed rounds, quiet reigns in 
the prison. But not all are sleeping j some are tossing upon 
their hard couches, vainly trying to lose their sorrows in slum- 
ber's transient dream. Hark ! from the inner dungeon come 
forth strange sounds. The watchman springs to the door to find 
it securely fastened as before. The sounds become louder, so 
that the prisoners not yet asleep are listening to the refrain of 
prayer and song sweetly echoing through the dark corridors^ 
Suddenly a terrific crash is heard. The windows rattle, the" 
doors creak and fly open, the walls rock, the solid foundations 
tremble, the shackles of the prisoners are loosed as by an 
electric current, confusion reigns supreme in darkness like that 
of Egypt. The terrified jailer leaps from his couch and in the 
first despair of the moment is about to take his own life, when 
from the inner dungeon comes forth the commanding appeal, 
"Do thyself no harm; for we are all here." It is the gospel 
call to self-preservation, which since then has been echoing 
around the world, warning the poor dupe of his own selfish 
despair, whether in gamblers' den, saloon, brothel, Sabbath- 
breaking excursion, or standing upon the first steps that lead 
the self-indulging youth down to ruin. Everywhere the trumpet 
peal of apostolic solicitude for the well-being of others should 
inspire vigorous protests against all forms of sinful indulgence 
that lead to self-injury. 

The conviction. Quick as the flash of the lights he called 
for as he rushed impetuously in trembling and falling down 
before Paul and Silas, the jailer's perturbed conscience revealed 
to himself his own gross sin towards the men and their God, 
whose presence and power he now fully recognized in the 
tumultous events of that fateful night. The fervent prayer 
came spontaneously, as a geyser's hot eruption, from his burn- 



Wesson II.] PAUL AT PHILIPPI. 



241 



ing heart, " Sirs, Masters, what must I do to be saved !" No 
more important question ever sprang to the lips of man. No 
young man or maiden can ask any other question of such 
momentous import. Its significance includes earth and heaven, 
its scope spans time and eternity. 

Doubtless, the first overwhelming rush of conviction, on the 
part of the astonished jailer was wrought largely by the super- 
natural drama of the night, but largely also, it is our privilege to 
believe, by the heroic loyalty of the Apostles to the truth, by 
their serene endurance of hardness as good soldiers of Jesus 
Christ, by their unselfish solicitude for the welfare of their 
persecutors, and their cheerful trust in God, whose special pro- 
tection they manifestly enjoyed. ' His own base part in their ill 
treatment and his cowardly attempt upon his own life might 
well overwhelm him with remorse. Well might he, well might 
any awakened sinner, standing face to face with his own sinful 
nature and fronting the demonstration of God's presence and 
power everywhere open to unprejudiced eyes, ask the great 
question, "What must I do to be saved?" 

II. The Great Answer. 

The reply to this momentous question was two-fold. It 
involved the two central principles of Christianity, faith and 
obedience. 

1. Faith. The answer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house," was addressed to an 
intelligent, responsible person, capable of independent self- 
determination. The jailer's household was promised salvation 
upon precisely the same conditions as himself. The individuals 
of that domestic circle were instructed in the same truth and 
received it in the same intelligent way as the head of the house- 
hold himself. Christ was presented to them as the object of 
their several personal faith. They were to believe on him, 
taking him as the ground of their religious belief, the final 
authority for their doctrine, practice, hopes and joys. He was 

16 



242 PAUL AT PHILIPPI. [Third Quarter. 

to be the object of their affections, the one towards whom their 
love, reverence, spiritual emotions and feelings of a religious 
nature were to go out in loyal adoration. 

He must be the ultimate ground of their religious opinions. 
Their views of truth must conform to his teachings. The 
spiritual longings of their religious nature were to be centered 
in him and find their sweetest satisfaction in him alone. 
Towards him were to gravitate all their best and holiest desires. 
By their personal trust in him they were to be justified from 
their sins and find conscious peace with God. Through this 
saving faith they were to be pardoned and released from the 
just penalty of their sins. But relying upon Jesus for exemp- 
tion from the penalty of sin would not release them from the 
ethical obligations laid down in the sermon on the mount. 
Accepting Jesus as Saviour did not imply that they were hence- 
forth to be free from the moral law. Their obligations to obey 
the law were not abrogated, but rather strengthened by the 
profession of faith in Jesus which they eagerly and promptly 
made. Believing on him was the entrance upon a life of prac- 
tical godliness, a testimony to the genuineness of their chris- 
tian profession which the world has always recognized as its 
right to expect and demand. Not only were they to take 
Jesus as their personal Saviour from the guilt of their sins, but 
they were to find in him a perfect Model and Pattern of life. 
He alone is the ideal of human excellence. No doubt the 
Apostles made all this and more very plain as " they spake unto 
him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." 
They probably dwelt upon the sweet simplicity of the require- 
ment, showing the younger members, if quite young, how easy 
a thing it is to believe on the Lord Jesus. The scope of the 
answer thus explained was seen to be much- larger than the 
anxious question of the jailer, who, in his terror, thought only 
of himself and his personal salvation. His whole household 
was included in the saving grace of God, that even then was 



Lesson II.] PAUL AT PHILIPPI. 243 

appearing to all men. So the gospel is always larger in its rich 
supplies of mercy than the recognized needs of man. God ; s 
compassion in the saving truth of Jesus is broader than the 
cries of the race. "Where sin abounded, grace did much 
more abound." 

2. Obedience. In unfolding to the jailer and his house- 
hold the nature of faith, the Apostles could not fail to teach its 
twin essential of salvation, obedience. In fact it is so com- 
pletely woven into the texture of true faith that separation be- 
tween them is practically impossible. If one truly believes on 
Christ he will obey Christ. 

Paul's experience at Damascus, when he was not disobedient 
to the heavenly vision, and his presence in Philippi in obedi- 
ence to the Macedonian appeal, were conspicuous illustrations 
of this principle. Had this pioneer evangelist been deaf to 
these calls of duty the opening of Europe to the gospel might 
have been delayed a thousand years. 

It is not strange that the Apostles, being themselves the em- 
bodiment of this principle, should so emphasize its importance 
in their preaching that the convert would see the absolute ne- 
cessity of implicit, prompt and cheerful obedience. 

Lydia had confessed her faith by immediate baptism. Her 
cordial hospitality to the Apostles was a welcome witness to the 
sincerity of her profession. It is not strange that the jailer 
and his living household should immediately, in the very night 
on which they accepted Jesus as their Saviour, request baptism 
at the hands of the Apostles. Delay in confessing the Lord 
in this ordinance is nowhere in the New Testament author- 
ized by precept or example. Instant, loving, happy, public 
confession of Christ in baptism, by all who embrace him, is 
the universal teaching of apostolic precedent. 

The jailer's prompt obedience in this ordinance was not a 
blind freak of a frightened man or the sudden impulse of fana- 
ticism. It was an intelligent, free, well-considered act of the 



244 PAUL AT PHILIPPI. [Third Quarter. 

will. So should it always be, and when thus observed the 
blessing is always sure to follow, as day succeeds the night. 
Neither the towering influence of Paul's character nor the awe- 
inspiring events of the night were sufficient to frighten him into 
so solemn and responsible a confession as that which he made 
in his baptism. He surely was no fanatic or weak-minded 
sentimentalist to be dominated by a whim or transient frenzy. 
His prompt obedience in baptism was an intelligent act, the 
result of sane, deliberate reflection and definite conviction of 
truth and duty. 

The conditions were essentially the same as regards the mem- 
bers of his household. That there were infants in his household 
or in that of Lydia, too small to understand the simple truth of 
the Apostles' instructions and therefore baptized upon the faith 
of their parents, is an assumption not worthy of serious con 
sideration. All who were baptized were capable of the same 
instruction and were baptized upon the same conditions of faith 
and obedience. Baptism is not essential to salvation, but it 
is essential to perfect obedience, perfect peace, and perfect 
development of christian character. 

Before he was baptized the jailer performed an act of sym- 
bolic interest in washing the stripes of the Apostles. Here 
was a forecast of that practical operation of the gospel in re- 
lieving the sufferings of humanity, for which the world had 
wearily waited many long and dark ages. No charitable home 
for orphans, no hospital for the maimed and diseased, no alms- 
houses for the poor, no kindly asylum for the deranged, no safe 
retreat for the aged, no such benevolent institutions shed one 
gleam of comfort upon the world's tidal waves of sorrow, before 
the introduction of the religion of the Nazarene. Paganism 
and infidelity do not bind up the broken-hearted, protect the 
weak, comfort the unfortunate or wash the stripes of those per- 
secuted for righteousness' sake. In spite of the progress of 
Christianity these nineteen hundred years, there is much yet to 



Lesson II.] PAUL AT PHILIPPI. 245 

be done in applying its humane and beneficent principles to 
the solution of ominous problems that seriously confront the 
student of sociology to-day. The spirit of our Lord acting as 
an emollient in human society, prevents wounds as well as binds 
them up. 

The gospel was not intended to touch the spiritual nature of 
man alone, but to shed light through all the dark places of life, 
to lighten up its trials, to sweeten its hardships, purify its joys, 
heal its wounds and minister to humanity's temporal as well as 
spiritual needs. The converted man should ever be ready to 
imitate the example of the Philippian jailer in trying to heal 
the wounds that are constantly inflicted by the misfortunes of 
our human estate. The conflicts between capital and labor, 
the corruptions that debase our political life, the oppresions 
that bring hardship and sorrow to many homes of honest toil, 
all these practical relations of men in society need the applica- 
tion of the spirit of charity that was taught by him who went 
about doing good. 

Joy reigned in that converted household after the new 
experiences of that memorable night. In ministering to the 
temporal necessities of the Apostles, its members exhibited the 
spirit of practical Christianity which the world ever needs, and 
received the profound joy which such ministrations always 
bring. In the prompt, intelligent and practical obedience that 
was manifested in the speedy baptism, we find the source of 
true, lasting and sweet joy. No wonder they rejoiced greatly. 
Young converts who promptly obey always do. No surer 
fountain of perennial happiness has ever been opened than that 
of just such loving, ready and cheerful obedience. 

To such as find perpetual inspiration in this refreshing fount, 
the command and promise is as of old ; "Go your way, eat the 
fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom 
nothing is prepared ; for this day is holy unto the Lord ; neither 
be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." 



lessen? III. July 16. 



PAUL AT ATHENS. 
Acts xvii: 22-31. 

By Rev. C. J. BALDWIN, Granviu,e, O. 

PAUL on Mars Hill had as a preacher of the gospel cer- 
tain great advantages. He had no need to seek an 
audience : a great congregation had already sought him 
and insisted on hearing him preach. No effort was necessary 
to awaken their interest ; the Athenians were the most eager 
listeners in the world. Spending their time in hearing and 
telling novelties, they were anxious to listen to the Jewish 
preacher. They had even given him their noblest rostrum, the 
chief pulpit of the nation, on the Areopagus, where Demosthenes 
and Pericles had delivered their classic orations. 

Nor was it necessary that Paul should propitiate them with 
reference to his theme : they were already prepossessed in 
favor of much that he had to say. They believed in the super- 
natural, the immortality of the soul, a state of rewards and 
punishments after death, and in a divine government of the 
world. The Greeks were not an atheistic or an irreligious 
people. They were excessively devoted to natural piety. 
Indeed the matter of worship was overdone by them. Their 
city was crowded with statues, shrines, altars. The temple and 
the priest were everywhere. All the social, aesthetic and intel- 
lectual life of the people was colored and shaped by ecclesias- 



Lessox m.] PAUL AT ATHENS. 247 

ticism. And this Paul recognized when he said, "Ye men of 
Athens I perceive that in all things ye are unusually religious." 

What then was their deficiency and how did the Apostle 
propose to supply it? He saw the point of their need and 
addressed himself to it when he said, u As I passed along and 
observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this 
inscription, ' To the unknown god.' What therefore ye worship 
in ignorance, that I declare unto you." 

They were groping in the dark ; he was able to lead them 
into the light. The function of Christianity in this world is to 
interpret men to themselves, religiously : to tell them the mean- 
ing of their imperfect moral nature and its operations. The 
gospel does not introduce religion to men : they are religious 
naturally, always and everywhere. The gospel need not urge 
men to believe in the supernatural : they are believers already. 
It is not necessary to recommend worship to them ; they are 
all worshiping something, looking up and bowing down to 
somewhat other and greater than themselves. Christianity 
never teaches men to erect temples, build altars, offer sacrifi- 
ces, for these things are already done or doing everywhere. 
Athens is as crowded now as of old with shrines and wor- 
shipers, and the Athenians are to-day a " very religious people." 

But the trouble is that men's faith is blind, their adoration 
misdirected. The more altars they have the worse off they are. 
The religion of this world is active and powerful, but it is igno- 
rant and misleading. Now Christianity comes as the sunshine 
to a world lying in darkness, not to create but to reveal, not to 
give to men a spiritual nature but to instruct that which they 
have, not to build for them an altar but to show them how to 
use the one already existing. 

Religion may exist where it is not recognized as such. Many 
a person is really a worshiper who does not know that he is one. 
What else is he who devotes his life to gain, making of wealth 
his chief end ? Perhaps he never goes to church or reads the 



248 



PAUL AT ATHENS. 



[Third Quarter. 



Bible or offers a prayer. He calls himself an atheist. But he is 
not. He has a god whom he worships. He is a regular 
devotee at the shrine of Mammon, the deity who is never with- 
out an altar with libations thereon, and living sacrifices earnestly 
rendered by selfish souls. 

If religion is a re-binding of the nature to that which is apart 
from it, above it, or greater than it, the world is full of religion. 
How many a temple to the goddess of Beauty and Pleasure 
may be seen rising in sculptured pride along the streets of our 
luxurious cities ! How many a sanctuary to Mars, grand and 
awful as the Capitol at Rome, has towered above the battlefields 
of earth, with its red altars smoking and its trophy-hung walls ! 

No religion in this world? — there has always been too much 
of it. The great embarrassment of the gospel is that wherever 
it goes it finds men pre-occupied with other faiths. There are 
so many temples and idols that there is no room for the 
cross. 

Even the so-called agnostic or rationalist — we use the terms 
without disparagement, to denote those who object to the 
spiritual scheme of salvation — is really an intense religionist. 
Instead of discarding faith in the unseen, reverence for and 
obedience to higher realities than the eye of flesh can see, he 
is exercising those qualities to the greatest extent. He has his 
deity, but he calls it Nature. He has his Bible, but he terms it 
Science. He has his altar, but he denominates it Experiment. 
The student of truth who rejects the supernatural is as far as we 
are from regarding humanity as sufficient to itself. He believes 
as we do in a supreme somewhat in and by which and for 
which are all things. He recognizes a moral government to 
which all responsible beings are bound, and by which right and 
wrong are determined and treated in connection with rewards 
and penalties. 

And more : he has his plan of salvation, a system of deliver- 
ance from error and evil. He caUs it Evolution. He trusts in 



tESSdN ril.l PAUL AT ATHENS. 249 

a Saviour whose name is Culture. He hopes for a Heaven to 
which Progress is the path. 

Now here is religion although it is not recognized as such. 
Here indeed are many of trie elements or materials that Chris- 
tianity asks for. And when we see the self-sacrifice and devo- 
tion of genuine scholars to their ideals, how they humble them- 
selves and become as little children to enter the kingdom of 
truth, how they deny themselves, take up their cross and fol- 
low science whither it leads them ; and when we mark their 
patience, fidelity and love toward the systems they serve, we 
often wish that we believers in the supernatural had their spirit. 
If Christ could receive from Christians the same self-denying 
consecration which Truth receives from the truth-seeker, it 
would be all that he asks for, and much more than he receives 
from most of us. 

What then is the great need of humanity? It is light — an 
illumination of the realities already around us, an interpretation 
of the mysteries now within us. Here is the altar ready for a 
sacrifice : but it is to the "Unknown God," and the world is 
waiting for some one to decipher that inscription. 

To supply this need the gospel comes as Paul to Athens. It 
says to the ambitious, striving soul, so full of needs and desires 
and efforts, " You are right in your discontent but wrong in 
your means of satisfying it ; your hunger and thirst are natural, 
but you have not the true bread and water of life. Go on then 
in the acquisition of riches ; but let me show you the genuine 
treasures to secure. Go on in pursuit of beauty, pleasure, 
peace ; but take for your ideal the charm of holiness. Go on 
in search of truth ; but let it be the primary not the secondary, 
the ultimate not the proximate, the cause not the effect, that 
you aim at." 

And having said this, Christianity proceeds to substitute the 
perfect for the imperfect, the true for the false. In addition to 
its advice, it reveals a person who is the way, the truth, the life. 



250 PAUL AT ATHENS. - [Third Quarter. 

In Jesus Christ dwells all the fulness of the godhead bodily. 
He presents to us the ideal of all good, wealth that will not 
perish, beauty that cannot fade, power that never fails, wisdom 
that is supreme. He thus answers all the soul's dumb question- 
ings and supplies all its inarticulate needs. When the ships of 
Columbus touched the edge of the New World, it was in the 
night; and although the mariners knew that their goal was 
before them, they must wait for the morning to gain possession 
of the prize. In God's own time the morning came, revealing 
America. In like manner the explorer of truth can never be a 
discoverer, until the Sun of Righteousness arises to make known 
the realities that lie dimly felt in the darkness. Christ is 
necessary to make of man a spiritual Columbus. 

Specifically, the gospel interprets to us the following blind 
instincts : — 

1. The yearning after perfectness. This is one of the innate 
and original tendencies of human nature. It is the motive 
power of all religions. It is peculiar to no age or land but is 
among the distinguishing characteristics that separate man from 
the brutes — dissatisfaction with the present and a longing for 
something better. What does it mean ? Why have men always 
been building temples, pyramids, columns, stretching their 
hands and straining their eyes upward, reaching out toward 
ends which they cannot see? The ideals of art, philosophy, 
religion, even when realized never satisfy the soul ; there is 
always a higher height not yet attained. 

" The highest mounted mind, he said, 
Still sees the sacred morning spread 
The silent summit overhead." 

These things are a mystery until the light reveals to us a 
grand attraction on high, a Creator who has inspired the 
creature with an impulse toward himself. The hunger and 
thirst of the spiritual nature are the witnesses which God has 



wesson lit.] PAUL AT ATHENS. 25 1 

left in man to testify to the human need of the divine. And 
when the waters of the sea respond to the unseen moon, and 
rise and fall in rhythmic movement along the shores of life, 
Jesus comes and explains to us the phenomenon : * No man 
hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son which is in 
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Now we 
understand ; the instincts of faith, prayer, reverence, aspiration 
— all religious tendencies, are interpreted by God in Jesus 
Christ. 

2. The truth respecting immortality. 

The query "does death end all" did not originate with 
readers of the Bible. A belief in continued existence beyond 
the grave is indigenous to humanity. Life always refuses to 
accept death as a finality. But why this persistent clinging to 
vitality? Why build the cenotaph and tablet and keep the 
memory of the departed green? To these "obstinate ques- 
tionings " there is no answer from natural religion. Men go 
on hoping, fearing, theorizing about the hereafter, and decorat- 
ing the grave with every protest that art can make against the 
idea of extinction. But what of it all? We are but groping 
among the dimly seen forms of truth, and our conjectures are 
at best the " bla,nk misgivings of a creature moving about in 
worlds not realized," until the daystar from on high visits us. 
•' Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gos- 
pel." The resurrection of the Lord Jesus was like the morning 
to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death. It 
justified all the dreams and vague ideas of those who refused to 
die or let others die, in the sense of annihilation. It explains 
to us our own faith in the unknown and rebukes everyone 

• ' Who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress trees, 
But hopeless lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the morning ray 
Across the mournful marble play." 



252 Paul At Athens. [Third quarter. 

The instinct of immortality is not misleading or irrational. 
It is based on fact and the nature of things. History justifies 
it, prophecy encourages it, experience is yet to confirm it. 
" As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of 
the dead." "We know that if the earthly house of our tene- 
ment be taken down, we have a building from God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

3. Man's impulses toward deliver a?ice from evil. 

Sin and salvation are not confined to the range of scripture 
revelation. They are the warp and woof of religion every- 
where. Not a form of paganism but is based on the ideas that 
men are not what they ought to be and that they may escape 
from their evil plight. Hence the altar and the sacrifice, the 
priest and the suppliant, that every clime and age have seen. 

What mean these universal and perennial realities? They 
may be false and corrupting in their influence. But if you 
could abolish them and destroy every bloody shrine and ghastly 
offering in which the impulse of wrong- doers has found expres- 
sion, what remains ? The propitiatory instinct. This is insepara- 
ble from human self- consciousness. It is born of the con- 
science and its accusing power. It is the natural effect of man's 
sense of justice and moral obligation. Given a conviction of 
sin, and the idea of sacrifice inevitably follows. Sacrifice to 
what? Ah, that is the question. Whom shall we appease and 
what shall we offer because of our wrong doing? Is it some 
conjectural deity, or our own ethical nature, whose law has been 
broken and whose authority must be propitiated? 

Thus men stand beside the nameless altar on which they 
lay their sin-offerings of many kinds. Not one conscious 
wrong-doer but has rendered some sacrifice there, from the slain 
victims of the pagan to the self- correction and consecration of 
the moralist. By some means sin is always made to point 
toward salvation. 

But how blind and futile all these efforts. How they re-act in 



Lesson III.] PAUL AT ATHENS. 253 

aggravation on the guiltiness which they represent. And yet 
they are all useful in this sense : they serve as the shadow or 
symbol of the truth. For they give to the gospel its text, "Whom 
ye worship in ignorance that I make known to you." They 
show the place and need of the cross of Christ. The instinct 
of salvation within us points to the true Saviour without us. 
All the sacrificial rites of natural religion have been voices in 
the wilderness crying " prepare ye the way of the Lord." It 
is by the principle of satisfaction to justice which man's moral 
nature has always observed, that the atonement has been 
heralded and prepared for. 

How blessed this office of interpretation ! To go out into a 
world of sin and suffering and decipher the red inscriptions on 
its altars of agony, to tell the self-accusing and tormenting 
heart the meaning of its pain, to lift from the darkened eye of 
gropers after peace the veil that hides their object, this is the 
benign mission of Paul to Athens, which has never ceased. 

It is the welcome errand of every believer to-day to present the 
cross as the antitype of the sinner's experience in striving to 
escape from sin. It is the clue to all the mysteries of con- 
science. It will answer the questions of ethical inquirers. It will 
consummate and crown all the ideals of souls seeking peace 
and purity. For it is the divine reponse to humanity straining 
and striving from the depths toward the heights. 

" I declare unto you " is the true motto of the christian mes- 
senger. He is sent on a mission of revelation and his words 
and works should be full of light. Let there be no ambiguity 
in his statements, no apologetic tone in his voice. He has a 
gospel to proclaim and he should utter it with all the clearness 
and confidence of a herald. The word " declare " stands in 
the New Testament for the "preaching" of Christ and the 
Apostles, and it well describes the style and effect of their 
treatment of truth. " I have declared thy name and will de- 
clare it " was the voice of the Messiah. " I have not shunned 



254 PAUL AT ATHENS. [Third Quarter. 

to declare unto you the whole counsel of God " was the testi- 
mony of Paul, and " that which we have seen declare we unto 
you " was that of John. 

These witnesses not only made the truth known, they made 
it clear, bright, attractive. They so emphasized divine revela- 
tion that no one could resist it. It was to them the most real, 
important, blessed thing that men could hear. So they " de- 
clared " it. 

This is what Christianity asks for at the hands of all its ser- 
vants, and it is what the world needs in order to be convinced 
of the truth — something more than a revelation. There may 
be and should be such a bright and brilliant showing forth of 
divine realities as will force them on the attention and credence 
of men. Christ himself was not only the Light of the world. 
He was the effulgence of the Father's glory ; and Christians 
are to be lights of the world in the sense that their works shall 
" so shine before men " that the Father may be glorified of them. 

We must declare the gospel. It is essentially a bold, bright, 
beautiful thing. Why present it timidly or tentatively, as though 
it were a candidate for human favor, or must depend on the 
results of human experiment? Let the gospel have a fair 
chance at men. Let the grand self-assertions of the ancient 
"I am" roll their thunder through the sermon and the lesson. 
Let the dear, divine " Ego " of the Lord Jesus be repeated and 
emphasized by preacher and teacher. We have a message to 
declare, not a theorem to demonstrate. " What ye worship in 
ignorance that declare I unto you." 



lessop 11/. July 23. 



PAUL AT CORINTH. 
Acts xviii: i-ii. 

By Rev. Professor RUSH RHKES, Newton Centre, Ms. 

FROM Athens, where in the last lesson we found Paul 
waiting in loneliness the coming of Timothy and Silas 
from Macedonia, and while waiting giving proof of the 
necessity that was laid upon him to preach the gospel, Paul 
went on, still alone, to Corinth, the centre of Greek enterprise 
as Athens was of Greek learning. A place of great commerce, 
it had a large colony of Jews, the larger for the recent edict of 
Claudius expelling Jews from Rome. A place of luxury and 
every conceivable wickedness, it peculiarly needed the message 
of righteousness and peace that Paul was bringing. 

But when the Apostle entered the city he seems not to have 
thought of its peculiar fitness for his message, or even its uncom- 
mon need of it. He came as any one of the strangers always 
flocking thither, and, with a sort of temporary postponement of 
his mission, sought out among the Jews fellow tradesmen with 
whom he might work and earn his bread. He found among 
the recent arrivals from Rome some tent-makers, Aquila and 
his wife Priscilla; with them he made his home and they 
worked together. Aquila and his wife are very frequently 
mentioned in Paul's letters as among the most helpful of his 
companions, and some have thought, because there is no 
record of their conversion after Paul found them, that they 



256 PAUL AT CORINTH. [Third Quarter. 

were already Christians when they came from Rome. Apart 
from the improbability of there being any christian community 
in Rome at the time of the expulsion of the Jews, it is not 
likely that Luke would have failed to mention the fact if Paul, 
entering a strange city, had found disciples of Jesus already 
there. It is most natural to count Aquila and Priscilla among 
Paul's early Corinthian converts, and to take the record as it 
stands, that similarity of trade was what drew them and Paul 
together. 

Associated with these tent-makers, Paul worked as others 
worked, and with the others rested and worshiped on the 
Sabbath. In the synagogue, and doubtless also at his daily 
toil, he told the message that never was long absent from his 
lips. Nevertheless, through all the first part of his life in 
Corinth his apostolic mission recedes from view. His chris- 
tian activity was like that of an earnest layman in any age. 
Paul the Apostle seems now to have been in heart in Mace- 
donia, with the disciples he had left there in the midst of per- 
secution, while Paul the tent- maker was in Corinth waiting the 
coming of Timothy and Silas. 

When these companions came all was changed. He had 
been weighed down by anxiety for those whom he had left in 
trouble after too short teaching in the new faith. They told 
him of the young disciples' steadfastness, and set his heart at 
rest. He had been hurried from place to place, nowhere 
having time to see the full result of his work. They told him 
of its permanence and fruitfulness there, and filled him with a 
new enthusiasm for his mission. As he would not preach to a 
strange people save at his own cost, he had found it necessary 
to spend most of his time at Corinth in getting bread. Timothy 
and Silas brought him from the Macedonian disciples a contri- 
bution which freed his hands. And from the time of their 
coming, Paul set vigorously to work to minister salvation to the 
Corinthians. 



LESSON IV.] 



PAUL AT CORINTH. 



257 



The period of seeming inactivity was not without result. It 
got him ready to work most effectively with just the people 
about him. His new intensity of effort took speedy effect, 
partly unfavorable, partly favorable. The opposition of the 
Jews, which was in no place long in showing itself, became 
outspoken and bitter, so that Paul found it impossible to work 
with or for them, and turned to those who were less blinded by 
prejudice. There went with him to begin the little christian 
community some who had been convinced by his ministry, and 
among them no less a person than Crispus, the ruler of the 
synagogue. 

The opposition was not content with driving the Christians 
from the synagogue. It took harsher forms, as when, later, 
on the arrival of a new governor, the Jews trumped up a 
charge against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat, 
evidently hoping that the governor's desire to please his sub- 
jects would be stronger than his sense of justice. This was the 
same bitterness that Paul had met at Philippi and at Thessa- 
lonica. Similar opposition, according to all appearance, 
accounts for his absence now from the young church at Bercea. 
But when the end of his work at Corinth seemed to be coming, 
as it had come in other cities, an experience like that which 
had at first called him from Troas to Macedonia, bade him 
work on fearlessly, braving opposition, sure of winning many 
in Corinth to his Master. The promise that no hurt should 
come to him from Jewish hate was put to a successful test in 
the case just mentioned, when the Jews accused Paul before 
Gallio, and the governor dismissed the charge as too petty even 
for an answer. So, instead of removing to another place where 
opposition had not yet risen, Paul worked on in Corinth, mak- 
ing there a ministry of a year and six months, departing only 
when his loved cause required him to return for a time to 
Judaea. 

This history reveals three stages in Paul's work at Corinth. 

17 



258 PAUL AT CORINTH. [Third Quarter. 

i, The period of incidental though fundamental work while 
his thoughts were far away with the Christians he had left in 
Macedonia. 2, The period of intense apostolic activity which 
followed on the coming of his companions with comforting 
reports from Macedonia and with gifts that freed his time for 
more continuous activity. 3, The new experience of opposi- 
tion ignored and of work bravely continued until the Apostle 
went elsewhere of his own choice. 

The significance of this experience of Paul appears more 
clearly if we call to mind the whole course of that missionary 
journey which reached its goal in Corinth. With the purpose 
of revisiting the churches planted on his first journey, Paul had 
started with Barnabas through Pisidia, Pamphylia and Lycaonia. 
Having done his work in Derbe, Lystra and other places, he 
went through the regions of Phrygia and Galatia,butwas hindered 
from preaching there. He passed one and another place, at 
every turn thwarted in his purpose to make his Master known. 
At Troas he had the vision which called him over to Mace- 
donia, seeming to explain and end the hindrances that had so 
far met him. He went to Philippi, but had just begun to 
gather a band of converts, when heathen opposition practically 
drove him from the city. This did not daunt him, for he had 
such experience before in Pisidia. He went on to Thessa- 
lonica. The work was opening there with promise, when the 
Jews with whom he had been laboring became jealous and 
stirred up a tumult against him. He was secretly sent to 
Bercea, and his heart was cheered by the readiness with which 
the Beroeans received his message. But hardly had he begun 
to see results from his work when Jews from Thessalonica came 
and stirred up a tumult there also, and Paul was sent away 
alone to escape the mob's wrath. Opposition he was used to, 
but such hindrance as left him less and less time in successive 
places, and drove him away from each before he could make 
young disciples ready for their trials, seemed a strange commen- 



^ 



Lesson IV.] PAUL AT CORINTH. 259 

tary on that direction which had brought him to Macedonia. 
He was conducted by the disciples to Athens, and was left 
there alone while Silas and Timothy were still in the North 
strengthening the new churches. Of his work in Athens and 
of his journey to Corinth we have already made study. 

Is it not clear that Corinth was God's objective point in all 
that journey? From place to place the Apostle was hurried, 
leaving each time disciples seeming to need his ministry, until 
he reached that great centre of life and luxury. There he 
was bidden to stay, let his enemies do what they would. Surely 
God's hand was in all that hard experience, and if so the study 
of it can teach us much. 

We may learn from it, first, that God often directs his faith- 
ful servants to build better than they know. We, of course, 
always recognize that the. Church's growth is, from beginning 
to end, God's work, and this is true. But when we see the 
thoughts and plans of good men over-ridden, and the success 
desired by them reached through their continual and almost 
total disappointment, we are led to bow more humbly before 
that august Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness. 
God causes to praise him not only the wrath of evil men but 
also the well-meant but mistaken, and therefore frustrated, 
efforts of good men. The Lord's people are led, often by a 
radical and painful contradiction of their own thoughts of his 
work, into lines and positions of activity where their labors will 
have the largest possible effect for the world's uplifting. No 
one of us, probably, knows how much good he is doing for the 
cause of his Master. Our disappointments, our apparent fail- 
ures, may be the very experiences by which we shall be enabled 
most to glorify God and bless humanity. What a comfort this 
is in moments when our best endeavors, to which we have bent 
utmost energy and consecration, seem shipwrecked ! Toil on 
then, brother ; let not your heart sink. God is with you as he 
was with Paul all that disappointing way from Macedonia to 



260 PAUL AT CORINTH. [Third Quarter. 

Corinth. Be your heart right, your head clear with the best 
light prayer will give you, and your hands busy in the 
work of his kingdom, and God will care for all consequences. 
These consequences will one day be revealed, and some 
of them will be so splendid as to make you glad that you 
lived. 

We see from this part of Paul's history, secondly, that God 
carries forward his kingdom strategically, seizing every point of 
special vantage and leaving unimportant positions temporarily 
unoccupied. When we remember what Corinth was, its large 
Jewish colony offering a most natural opportunity for the begin- 
ning of a christian church, its people always changing, going 
to and coming from all corners of the world, making the city 
a promising centre for the spread of the new faith into regions 
as yet unvisited by it, we see the strategic significance of the 
divine choice which sent Paul past many other cities until he 
found his place in Corinth. This divine leading shows us 
God's far-sighted purpose in Paul's work. In Troas and the 
other towns of Asia Minor were thousands of souls personally 
as needy as any in Corinth. In Philippi and Thessalonica and 
Bercea lived men and women enough for the Apostle's ministry 
for many years. Yet God rushed him from these needy places 
to Corinth. Why? We can never guess until we have our 
eyes opened to see that God's purpose is not carried out in a 
haphazard way, but as great generals win campaigns. 

Corinth was the place from which the new salvation could 
spread most widely into different regions, so affecting the 
world's life. Corinth had such a position in the commerce of 
the day that whatever wrought on men there would carry per- 
suasive credentials to the ends of the earth. Corinth contained 
the intensest of the world's iniquity, of the world's need, 
and of the world's spiritual hunger. If the gospel proved of 
worth for Corinth it would be mighty for the whole world's 
help. This is why God sped Paul to Corinth, and kept him 



Lesson IV.] PAUL AT CORINTH. 26 1 

there until the new faith was fairly rooted and could grow and 
bring forth fruit for the world's health. 

Notice, thirdly, the application of this thought to the mis- 
sionary problem. This century has brought to God's Church a 
happy revival of that missionary spirit which led Paul to work 
in Asia Minor and Macedonia, and kept him in readiness to 
be sent at God's bidding to cities and regions new. The feel- 
ing of universal fellowship has deepened, and men are con- 
vinced that a gospel which is good for sons of Adam in America 
and Europe, is good for their brothers in Asia and Africa and 
the islands of the sea. We hear year after year renewed calls 
to go to some " Macedonia " with help for souls. As the cen- 
tury has passed, more and more regions have been opened to 
the gospel. God has thus led his people to their present op- 
portunity, and the Church has responded with men and gifts. 
Now, however, as more and more are called for, there rises in 
many hearts an objection which sees waste in spending on the 
salvation of one soul in Asia men and means which might 
minister to the salvation of ten in America. The merely 
sentimental answer, that these already have a chance while 
the Asiatics have not, is not adequate, for sentiment is likely 
to reply that one soul here is worth ten there. Besides, 
the answer is hazardous, in that it seems to set man's solici- 
tude for souls in contrast with a divine indifference which 
leaves some without a chance. The mystery of life with its 
various complexities is not for our solving, but it is safe to 
say that men's love and care will never out-do God's love and 
care. 

In the teaching of Paul's Corinthian ministry we have the 
true answer to the problem. The light of Christ must be put 
where it can reach the uttermost corners of the earth, and in 
each age where it will reach as far as possible for that age. 
God's purpose is to save the whole world. Therefore his people 
cannot rest in the Philippis or the Thessalonicas ; they must 



262 PAUL AT CORINTH. [Third Quarter. 

sweep on and on, till every Corinth on earth is reached and 
made a missionary centre. 

We observe, in the fourth place, that the Almighty proposes 
not to save men as so many isolated specimens of humanity, 
but to save human society. Corinth did not consist of a great 
drove of men, such as we see at fairs or in caravans, but in an 
organic body of rational beings. Its importance strategically 
consisted largely in this. God's thought of salvation is not 
met by the rescue of any number of individual souls to eternal 
life, be the number large or small. He seeks through the sal- 
vation of individual men and women to save also the social 
total. For each one of us human life is a little moment of an 
eternity toward whose infinite unexpended part we are made to 
look forward. But there is a general human life which abides 
while individuals pass on and out from sight. Call it society, 
call it humanity or what you will, it is that sum of life and 
influence into which all of us are born, the world-life, the age, 
the sum-total of conscious human existence. To its health 
or corruption we all contribute. It preserves and hands on 
traditions, customs, ideals and laws, though differing from age 
to age and in varying climes. 

This humanity is to feel the vitalizing touch of Christ, in 
order that the customs, laws, ideals and hopes of men may be 
lifted up and made heavenly ; and this is to occur through the 
winning in earth's every corner of some souls who shall live 
the Christlike life and be centres of Christlike influence. There- 
fore it is that, through interest in the salvation of other souls, 
which interest can never be too large, and through the opening 
of the whole world to the coming of Christ's ministers, God 
leads his people in this day, as of old he led Paul to Corinth, 
each at just the right time, to the places in which their work 
can tell most powerfully for the salvation of the great human 
social body. Only when this is thoroughly renovated will 
man be saved. Only then will the Son of Man see the full travail 
of his soul and be satisfied, 



lessor I/. July 30. 



PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

Acts xix: 1-12. 
By Rev. W. W. EVERTS, Haverhiu,, Mass. 

THIS lesson divides itself into two parts. In the first part 
we see how the gospel attracts those who are teachable. 
In the second part we see how it is repelled by those who 
are hardened. The teachable ones were some twelve disciples 
of John the Baptist, who were living at Ephesus. How disci- 
ples of John happened to be found thirty years after their 
master's death so far away from the river Jordan we are not 
told, and yet it would be a strange coincidence if the labors 
of Apollos, an eloquent advocate of John's baptism, whose 
presence in Ephesus is referred to in the preceding chapter, 
had no connection with the formation of this little band. Apollos 
was a Jew from Alexandria, a city which had been the scene of 
the labors of the Seventy (Septuagint), who translated the Old 
Testament into Greek, and was the home of Philo, the learned 
interpreter. In Alexandria Apollos became " mighty in the 
Scriptures," and he hailed with enthusiasm the reformation 
which John had inaugurated, with repentance for its watchword 
and immersion for its sign. He had a perfect understanding of 
the significance of this movement as a preparation of the Jews 
for the coming Messiah. Although thirty years had passed 
since the ascension of Jesus, no report of it had reached Ephe- 
sus, and though Alexandria is much nearer Mount Olivet, there 



264 PAUL AT EPHESUS. [Third Quarter. 

is no record that any attempt had been made to evangelize 
Egypt. At all events Apollos, when he arrived in Ephesus, was 
still a disciple of John. 

Many of John's disciples used to consort in Judea with the 
Pharisees, whose frequent fasts were more congenial to them 
than the free and informal life of the Apostles. " The disciple 
is not above his master," and they did not rise above the 
state of doubt expressed by John in the question which he sent 
to Jesus from his dungeon : " Art thou he that should come or 
do we look for another?" If the followers of John in Judea 
were not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, it is not strange 
if those living, like Apollos, in Alexandria, and the twelve in 
Ephesus, were utterly unacquainted with the triumphs of the 
risen and ascended Christ and of the descending Spirit. 

What Apollos taught when he came to Ephesus was the 
necessity of repentance and of the confession of sins. The 
motives he urged were the fan and the fire, the fan with which 
the coming Messiah would separate the wheat for his garner, 
and the fire with which the chaff would be burned. Those who 
honestly repented and forsook their evil ways made a public 
acknowledgement of their faith by submitting to a rite that sig- 
nified complete purification. John had told the people to 
"believe on him that should come after him," but after his own 
hesitation in accepting Jesus as the Messiah it is not likely that 
anything more definite was demanded by his successors. We 
are then to understand tl at the disciples whom Paul found at 
Ephesus had been taught "the way of the Lord " as far as John 
knew it and no further. In other words, they were in a tran- 
sition state, having accepted all the light they had seen, and 
were now waiting for more. Their repentance was clear but 
their faith was clouded. They knew little of Jesus and less of 
the Holy Spirit, but they were seekers after God. They needed 
some one to " show them the way of the Lord more perfectly." 
Apollos had received such help from Priscilla and Aquila. and 



Lesson V.] PAUL AT EPHESUS. 265 

being thus qualified for service he had gone on a missionary 
tour to Corinth to water the field that Paul had planted. 

Thus Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia Minor, was left for 
Paul to labor in without building on any other man's founda- 
tion. He had been gone from Ephesus scarcely a year. In 
this time he had first visited Jerusalem, and then he had made 
a tour through Asia Minor, confirming the churches which he 
had established. At last he is permitted to do what he had 
been " forbidden of the Holy Gost " to do four years before, 
"speak the word in Asia," the province of which Ephesus was 
the capital. He finds there now a small company that need 
but a word from him to be formed into a christian church. 
As a wise master builder, the Aspostle first gave his attention 
to stones that were already half prepared for the foundation of 
the temple. He sought out "those that were worthy." There 
are such in every community, who are waiting for light and 
encouragement. A new minister in a parish is sure to find 
some ripe souls that his predecessor had overlooked. 

The very first question put to them by Paul showed that he 
was an advocate who knew how to get at the root of a matter 
at once. The specific difference between christian baptism 
and the baptism of John is brought out by this question. John 
himself recognized the same difference when he said : " I indeed 
baptize you with water but he shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire." The Saviour called attention to this 
fundamental distinction in his last interview with his Apostles, 
and now Paul implies by his question that christian baptism is 
not complete without the gift of the Holy Spirit. He knew 
that these men had been immersed in water but he was not 
satisfied unless they were immersed at the same time in the 
Holy Spirit. Peter had promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to 
those who repented and were immersed. Paul inquired whether 
the promise Peter had made was fulfilled in their case. Thi s 
inquiry should be made gf every believer. The gospel is first 



266 PAUL AT EPHESUS. [Third Quarter. 

of all a message to the ear and to the understanding, but it is 
more than that. When the word of truth is mixed with faith in 
the heart, then the heart is quickened by the Holy Spirit. The 

gospel is not an interrogation point but a dialogue, with man's 
questions and God's answers. One who is ever questioning 
without ever receiving in response a witness of the Spirit, does 
not know what faith is. "The elders received a good report" 
from heaven. 

The reply given to the Apostle's question indicated plainly 
that these disciples knew more of repentance than of regenera- 
tion, and that they were still living under the law of works and 
not under the law of the spirit of life. They had not heard, 
no one in Ephesus had heard till Paul came, of the descent of 
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They were still shut up in the 
dark, not knowing that it was high noon. They acknowledged 
their ignorance with the utmost candor. They were well named 
disciples for they were ready to learn. They were not satisfied 
with their condition nor did they treat with contempt the 
" strange things " that were brought to their ears. Nothing 
had been said to them about the Holy Spirit when they were 
baptized and nothing had been said to them about this subject 
afterwards. Members of churches to-day who are destitute 
of the Holy Spirit cannot justify themselves by any such plea 
of ignorance. 

The next question expresses surprise that any one could be 
baptized except into the Holy Spirit. Still the Apostle is de- 
termined to fathom this singular baptism. The only baptism 
he recognized was immersion into the name of the Holy Spirit 
and of the Father and of the Son, and he desired to know into 
what baptism these had been baptized. What kind of baptism 
is that with which the Holy Spirit is not associated ? What 
astonishment Paul would have felt if he had heard of the bap- 
tism of an infant, to which he could not even put the question : 
•* Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" John's 



Lesson v.] PAUL AT EPHESUS. 267 

baptism, any baptism, that was not accompanied by the Holy 
Spirit, was a matter of surprise to the great Apostle and should 
be to all those who follow him. One might as well seal up a 
letter before it is written as baptize any one who is spiritually a 
blank. Though John's baptism was of heavenly origin, the 
Apostle accorded to it no validity when it was administered to 
persons who were both uninstructed in the truth and unen- 
lightened by the Spirit. He would not suffer Christianity to 
sink, as Judaism had already fallen, into an empty ceremony. 
He ascribed no magical power to water. He magnified the 
spiritual and moral elements in the gospel and would tolerate 
no substitute for them. He insisted that baptism should be 
administered to the right persons, to those who in baptism 
received the answer of a good conscience, the gift of the 
Holy Spirit. 

Paul's question they answered as frankly as before. " Into 
John's baptism " Then the Apostle explained to them the true 
relation of the Forerunner to the Lord Jesus. Before Jesus had 
made himself known, John referred to him as the one "who 
should come after him." A few months later he added : " That 
he should be made manifest to Israel, for this cause came I 
baptizing with water." He thus summed up his whole minis- 
try in the one object of announcing and identifying the Son 
of God. After recalling to the minds of these disciples of 
John the instructions of their master, especially his command 
to "believe on him who should come after him," Paul presents 
to them Jesus as the promised Messiah. They recognized 
John's authority. They found in Paul's account of Jesus just 
the one they were looking for, and scarcely had they heard the 
exhortation to obedience before they were baptized, this time 
" into the name of the Lord Jesus." 

This is the only instance of a re-baptism recorded in the New 
Testament. It has caused a great deal of trouble to the oppo- 
nents of the Baptists and the Anabaptists, because it gives an 



268 



PAUL AT EPHESUS. 



[Third Quarter. 



apostolic precedent for the repetition of baptism. The result 
has been that learning has been disgraced in the vain efforts 
that men have made to force a different meaning on this pas- 
sage. The repetition of baptism in this instance proves con- 
clusively that it is not a saving ordinance, that no virtue is 
imparted by the act itself. It proves also that no baptism is 
valid unless the recipient believes in Jesus Christ and in the 
Holy Spirit. Indeed " no man can say Jesus is Lord, but in 
the Holy Spirit." It makes obligatory the re-baptism of all those 
whose knowledge was fundamentally defective when they were 
first baptized. It transfers the emphasis of the rite from the 
administrator and from the material element to the believing 
soul. 

The repetition of baptism, especially by one who declared 
that he was sent " not to baptize but to preach the gospel" 
has a further significance. It proves that the Apostle in- 
sisted on the strict observance of this ceremony. No faith 
or good works on the part of these twelve men could atone for 
their imperfect baptism. He understood the pre-eminent 
importance of faith, and of a spiritual life, and for that very 
reason he insisted on baptism, not as a constituent element of 
grace but as an acknowledgment of grace already received. 
He was as eager to see it in its proper place as an exponent of 
faith, as he was loath to see it where it signified nothing. The 
Friend who rejects baptism misunderstands Paul as truly as 
the Romanist who ascribes to baptism power to save. After 
baptizing them he laid his hands upon their heads that 
they might receive the Holy Spirit of whom he had spoken. 
They were at once qualified for christian service, for they were 
able to address any stranger in the city in the tongue in which 
he was born, and they were also gifted with an insight into the 
secrets of a man's heart and could reprove and judge so that he 
would fall down on his face and worship God, declaring " God 
is among you indeed," 



Lesson V.] PAUL AT EPHESUS. 269 

After the Apostle had established in the faith the disciples of 
John, he turned his attention to the disciples of Moses. For 
three months he labored in the synagogue. He spoke with great 
confidence of the things concerning the Kingdom of God, follow- 
ing up his arguments from the Scriptures with persuasive appeals. 
Such boldness on his part aroused hostility on the part of those 
whom he could not persuade. The only way by which they 
could resist his loving entreaties was by hardening their hearts. 
When they had decided to disobey the command of the Lord, 
they sought to justify themselves by speaking evil of the Way. 
This they did before everybody in order to hinder the progress 
of the gospel. Paul was compelled to seek for the disciples he 
had gathered another place of meeting. He found it in a 
school-room, where he could reason with the Greeks as he had 
reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue. As the teacher was 
in his place every day and continued the services for two years, 
there was opportunity for everybody to hear him, and all who 
lived in Asia, the western province of Asia Minor, heard the 
word of the Lord from his lips. 

The services were confined to certain hours of the day. At 
other times he was working at his trade, and mention is made 
of his working aprons. For his aprons were taken to the sick 
who could not come to hear him, and the diseases departed 
from them. Even the handkerchiefs with which he wiped his 
brow during his toil were carried away to drive out evil spirits. 
These are called special miracles and may be compared with 
those with which Aaron defeated the magicians of Egypt. 
Ephesus was the place where magicians herded, and to prove 
the superiority of the gospel to their black arts those extraord- 
inary miracles were permitted. Touching a handkerchief was 
like looking at the brazen serpent. All Paul's miracles were 
wrought in Christ's name, and the use of his handkerchief 
simply certified that the cure was performed by Paul's Master. 
There is nothing in this account favorable to the use and 



270 



PAUL AT EPHESUS. 



[Third Quarter. 



worship of relics. The handkerchiefs and aprons were not 
relics in any sense, for a relic is something taken from one who 
is dead. The religious impression produced by a miracle was 
the same whether it was wrought by means of the Apostle's 
hand or by his handkerchief. But if his handkerchief had 
been preserved and used to effect cures after his death, it would 
have been idolatry. As it is these special miracles prove that 
Paul was endowed with more power than any other Bible 
worthy, for when Elisha tried to raise a dead child by sending 
his staff to be laid upon it, he failed. 



lessor VI. August 6. 



PAUL AT MILETUS. 

Acts xx: 22-25. 
By Rev. JOHN R. GOW, Hydk Park, Iu,. 

SELDOM even in the New Testament may one find so 
clear a statement of a fundamental truth joined to so 
compact a body of illustration, as in the meagre report of 
Paul's farewell to the elders of the church at Ephesus. The 
statement is given in language attributed by common tradition 
to Jesus himself, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
Two principles of action are here contrasted. Egoism makes 
self the centre for inflowing streams. Altruism makes self a 
centre, but chiefly for distribution. And Jesus declares that 
action according to the latter principle offers to any moral 
being the more satisfactory results. 

We might argue this truth from the outcome of action to 
the contrary. The miser in his dreary counting-room, the 
self-lover torn with jealousy, the victim of over- weening ambi- 
tion, the spoiled child of luxury yielding to vice and perishing 
of ennui, the degraded recipients of misdirected charity, busi- 
ness rivals cutting each other's throats in obedience to an iron 
law of competition, employers and employed fighting for what 
they call their rights, and the state estopped from its high des- 
tiny by parties intent only on the spoils of office, are not to be 
called blessed even by poetic license of speech. Such a law 
of life must be an inheritance from an ancestry either animal 
or in some way de-humanized. Only as intelligence and mor- 



272 PAUL AT MILETUS. [Third Quarter. 

ality prevail over brute instincts do men discern common inter- 
ests and seek the common well-being. If humanity ascends 
into the divine it must be along this pathway of self-giving. 
Days come when treasures, never so carefully laid up in store, 
slip from despairing hands. Then past deeds of love must 
spread their heavenly pinions to bear us to the higher realms. 

If God has ever drawn near to man he has moved along the 
heavenly portion of the same blessed way. Was not creation 
itself a first step in " the royal way of the cross," as a Kempis 
names it? God reached his Sabbath only when he had fash- 
ioned in his own image beings upon whom he might bestow 
himself. Has not the whole course of revelation been a con- 
tinued giving as men could understand and themselves impart 
what they were themselves receiving? 

Note three significant incidents in the ministry of Jesus. In 
the wilderness, incarnate self-seeking promised, " I will give 
thee the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them if thou 
wilt fall down and worship me." Incarnate self-giving replied, 
" Get thee hence Satan." And angels ministered to the victor. 
By the lake-side his own people were ready to bestow on him 
a crown ; but the strong Son of Man again held himself only 
to giving, fortifying himself in this purpose by a night alone 
with his Father in the mountain solitude. Soon another moun- 
tain saw him transfigured. In the garden, under the walls of 
the city whose rulers were about to crucify him, angel guards 
were waiting to rescue the Lord of heaven ; and there once 
more the choice was made to verify, even in blood-shedding, 
the words, " God so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have eternal life." The resurrection morning began an 
everlasting hymn to his praise. The streams of sacrificial 
blood that had flowed over the altars of religion through all the 
ages deposited only their crystalline matter on the summit of 
Calvary. The altar that bore the offering for the sins of the 



Lesson VI.] PAUL AT MILETUS. 273 

world was glorified to dazzling whiteness by its self-offered 
burden. Because of its out-pouring of love the brutal tale of 
the crucifixion of the Son of God may and shall be rehearsed 
continually in that land where sorrow and pain and tears may 
not intrude, enhancing even the blessedness of the Lamb upon 
his throne. He who is able to subdue all enemies, not by the 
thundering of Jehu's chariots but by the ministry of love, 
the travail of his own soul, may surely be allowed a final 
opinion on the best principles of life. 

After some such fashion it is possible to argue the superiority 
of the rule of self-giving. But in the practical stir of daily 
business and pleasure, it seems little more than a vision of the 
beautiful, a dream of the land that is very far off. A little 
thin-faced girl stopped to look at a fallen rose. " You can 
have it," said the lady from whose hand it had slipped. But 
the child looked from it to the blue sky long and earnestly. 
" Well," said the lady, " why don't you pick up the rose? It is 
mine." " Oh," responded the child, drawing a long breath, 
" I thought it was God's rose, and that he dropped it there." 
" You poor child," said the lady, kindly, " it is God's rose, and 
yours and mine, too," and she picked it up and held it out to 
the little girl. But the child put her hands behind her and ran 
off without touching the red rose, over- awed by such rare beauty 
coming near her forlorn life. Just so we treat this gift of God, 
the bliss of self-giving, unable to think it our very own because 
it is divine. Yet why should those made in God's image 
find it hard to understand that God is the centre of all beati- 
tude when he is its eternal source, or to believe that to us 
supremest happiness may come from the fleeting aroma if we 
pass the cup of joy to our thirsty fellows? 

Paul was a bolder, loftier spirit. Both in theory and in prac- 
tice he accepted the Master's opinion. 

1. Paul's theology was built about this principle of self- 
giving. The gospel as he conceived it was a story " of the 

18 



274 PAUL AT MILETUS. [Third Quarter. 

grace of God." Every man looks at the mission of Jesus from 
the standpoint of his own personal experience. The vision on 
the road to Damascus is the clue to Paul's doctrine. That he, 
the violent persecutor of the followers of Jesus, should have 
been made to see in Jesus the perfect revelation of God's love 
to men was an unmerited favor for which he could find no 
parallel. God's treatment of him, the chief of sinners, gave 
him a universal message. When he came to think it all out he 
had to use the terms with which his training had made him 
familiar. But all were glorified by the thought of the divine 
grace. He approached the old doctrine of the election of a 
people and of individuals from this side and softened the 
harshness and battered down the exclusiveness of the popular 
thought. He might apply to the disciples' relation to God 
through Jesus all the legal formularies of Jewish councils and 
Roman courts. He might find in the ritual of Israel the type 
of Jesus' mediatorship. He might speak of the death of Jesus 
on the cross after the fashion of the priests who delighted in 
the details of their bloody sacrifices. But all such special lan- 
guage was intended simply to describe the self-giving of God 
to his needy and sinful creatures. Symbols and comparisons 
of every kind were seized upon to convey this idea. He 
could even rise to the audacity of declaring that the Ephesian 
church was part of " the Church of God, purchased with his 
own blood," yet the boldest imagery was inadequate to describe 
his vision of "the exceeding riches of God's grace in kindness 
toward us in Christ Jesus." To this same " word of his grace " 
he turns as the last resort after all his care and reminiscence 
and exhortation. God might sanctify the Church by imparting 
new knowledge, by providential interference, by spiritual con- 
tact. But mainly he must work by the story of grace. What 
the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God 
had undertaken to do by the gospel. The method of ritual 
had come short of the needed redemption. The inner doc- 



Lesson VI.] PAUL AT MILETUS. 275 

trine, the philosophies of the schools, the intellectual and 
scientific grasp of truth alike had failed to reach the miseries of 
the people. It was the word of grace and this alone that 
gathered the Church and would be able to build it up and 
give Christians inheritance among all the sanctified. 

2. Side by side with this self- giving of God to man, Paul 
maintains that this same principle must absolutely prevail in 
the Church. Great urgency characterizes his repetition of this 
exhortation to the elders. " Take heed to all the flock," he 
says. " The Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the 
church." "Watch ye." "Help the weak." "Remember 
the words of the Lord Jesus how he himself said, It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." What but a thorough-going 
adoption of the principle of self-giving could answer to such a 
charge ? Doubtless those poor elders of the church felt their 
hearts sink again within them, if indeed they at all compre- 
hended the meaning of his earnest words. In this day chris- 
tian men are still wondering if Paul and Jesus meant the things 
they seem to have said. The pressure of self-seeking invades 
the body of Christ and paralyzes many of its best intentions. 
Shepherds that abuse the sheep for gain, sheep that quarrel 
with each other over pasturage and sheep-fold and the shep- 
herd's care offer a strange illustration of the unity of the spirit 
in the bonds of perfectness. Yet to the Apostle the grace 
received in Jesus involved the bestowal of grace in like abun- 
dance upon all that needed grace. In his mind the Church 
contained apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors 
and teachers " for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of 
ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ." 

Shall we not say, then, that the Church exists for the manifes- 
tation of the spirit of Jesus, to be the corporate incarnation of the 
life of God ? " This is obviously God's method. When he 
would bring about an elevation of the world he never effects 
his purpose by a pull at once at the whole dead level of 



276 PAUL AT MILETUS. [Third Quarter. 

humanity. He has always set to work by giving special gifts to 
a few elect souls, and through their means leavening the whole 
of humanity by degrees." The doctrine of Apollos, Paul and 
John was to be wrought together as the doctrine of Christianity 
there in Ephesus in the presence of pagan philosophy and 
superstition. There too the application of the doctrine was to 
be made to the daily life, the idolatry, the trade and the splen- 
did vice of the city. The local church is to be the constant 
expression of the mind of God for the world's redemption. In 
it the spirit of each age articulates itself in christian speech. 
It is to be a centre of moral and spiritual health to the chang- 
ing social organism. It is not a mutual benefit association, a 
moral insurance company, a religious creche, or even an organ- 
ization for the maintenance of public worship. It is all this by 
being more, a body of servants of Jesus pushing the kingdom 
of God's grace intensively and extensively. With such a 
church men may be content as " their only monument." Such 
a church and only such a church is worth God's dying for it. 

3. Our lesson contains illustration by practice as well as by 
theory and exhortation. Paul could declare with full sense of 
his responsibility that he was " pure from the blood of ail men." 
No person in Ephesus could rise up and say that Paul had not 
cared for his soul. Not many had accepted the gospel of 
God's grace, but to the best of his ability the Apostle had ful- 
filled "the ministry which he had received from the Lord 
Jesus." How full our passage is of reminiscences of such 
marvellous devotion ! With lowliness of mind, with tears, with 
trials, coveting no man's silver or gold or apparel, but caring 
for himself and his companions by daily labor at his trade, he 
gave himself to teaching publicly and from house to house, 
going about preaching the kingdom. He shrank from nothing 
that was profitable to either Jew or Greek, declaring the whole 
counsel of God and admonishing everyone night and day with 
tears. How intense, too, the flame of his devotion still was, 



Lesson VI.] PAUL AT MiLETUS. 27? 

that had burned so brightly in Ephesus for three years. He 
was going to Jerusalem under constraint of the spirit. They 
should see his face no more. Just what was to befall him he 
did not know. Only as he went on clear warning came in 
every city that bonds and afflictions of some sort waited for 
him, and yet the course marked out for him in God's grace 
allured him more than it frightened him. He would accom- 
plish it at any cost. In comparison with such a mission he 
held his own life of no account. Nor was this empty bravado. 
In those memorable defences of his apostolic career which he 
has left us, we learn how sincere was the devotion of his heart. 
Here was a Jew without an itching palm. Here was a man 
of weak bodily presence and suffering some infirmity, whose 
spirit feared naught that men or Satan could oppose to his 
ministry. Driven from city to city, hated by his fellow- 
countrymen, and misunderstood by those to whom he gladly 
gave himself, this servant of Jesus was more than willing to " fill 
up on his part that which was lacking of the afflictions of 
Christ in his flesh for his body's sake which is the Church." 
The spirit of self-giving utterly triumphed in him as in his 
Master. He gloried in his tribulations. He rejoiced in his 
sufferings in behalf of the disciples. He not only put the 
world behind him, but he forgot his own past as he stretched 
forward " unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus." His swan song was full of an unearthly blessedness : 
" I have finished my course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth 
there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day ; and 
not only to me, but also to all them that have loved his appear- 
ing." The Roman prison could not quench his holy joy, or 
the Roman sword interrupt for one instant the continuity of 
his blessed life. 

One cannot but feel after this review of the Apostle's con- 
ception of the christian faith and practice, that the principle 



2 7$ PAUL AT MILETUS. [Third Quarter; 

here commended is fundamental to Christianity. More than 
any other it voices the essential truth of the religion of Jesus. 
Herein the religions of the nations fail to stand the test. Strip 
them of their superstitions and falsehoods and they are power- 
less to control the mighty passions of mankind. Christianity 
alone seizes upon the hearts of men and makes appeal to 
grateful love, because it is neither a philosophy nor an ethical 
code nor a scheme of life, but a simple story how God gives 
himself to men, in intimate and loving ways, for the removal of 
their weakness and misery and rebellion. It meets the wants 
of individuals and of mankind in its entirety, for it calls into 
play all the purest social instincts along the same line as God's 
own self-giving. For the professed believers in Jesus to sub- 
stitute for this either law, ritual, or mediatorship, or even the 
brotherhood of humanity, is to paganize Christianity. Paul 
warned the Ephesian elders against the self-seeking wolves and 
the men who should speak perverse things to lead away the 
disciples. More to be deplored than the destructive critics of 
our Holy Scriptures are the leaders who allow the currents of an 
egoistic age and the false lights of the past to carry the Church 
away from this great pathway. " In thy light shall we see 
light." 

One day, the great Alexander found Diogenes bathing him- 
self in the glories of the sun. The royal conquerer stepped up 
to the plain, honest old philosopher, and asked him if the con- 
queror of the world could do him a favor. "Yes," said the 
happy old man, " please step aside from between me and the 
sun." Oh, Christian brother, let no man or opinion or earth- 
mist come between you and the heavenly radiance of this 
principle of Jesus : " It is more blessed to give than to receive ! " 
God has given himself to us that we may give ourselves to each 
other and to him. In this way only shall the happiness of the 
world be perfected. 



lessoi} l/II. /lucJusi: 13- 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 

Acts xxi: 22-3 g. 
By Rev. Professor J. M. ENGLISH, D.D., Newton Centre, Ms. 

PAUL'S fifth and final visit to Jerusalem, a chief scene of 
which this passage depicts, was in the highest degree 
dramatic. He now saw the Jewish capital for the last 
time. He had come with the noble object of carrying a con- 
tribution from the gentile Christians in Macedonia and Achaia 
to the poor among the Jewish mother church. One of the three 
leading Hebrew festivals, Pentecost, was in progress. He now 
met James the brother of Jesus. He magnanimously took upon 
himself the Nazaritic vow. Four times he- was rescued from 
instant and terrible death. He conspicuously showed his 
remarkable tact in addressing a frenzied mob. In a most pic- 
turesque situation he declared his Roman citizenship. He 
appeared before the Jewish Sanhedrim. In the night "the 
Lord stood by him and said, ' Be of good cheer ; for as thou 
hast testified concerning me in Jerusalem, so must thou also 
bear witness at Rome.' " So far as we have clear record, this 
visit marked the climax of Paul's unparalleled public ministry. 
The scene with which we particularly have to do was the meet- 
ing place of Roman power, of Jewish bigotry, and of Christian 
consecration. These are elements enough, certainly, to make 
the event of the Apostle's last visit to the Holy City one of the 
most striking and significant events in all his history. 



280 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. [Third Quarter. 

The passage that we are to study introduces us to Paul when 
he was about completing the seven days of the Nazaritic vow, 
which he had willingly entered into for the sake of mollifying 
the prejudice against him of the believing Jews in Jerusalem. 
The vow was required of him at the instigation of the Zealots 
for the law, a part of whom, at least, were bitterly opposed to 
the Apostle, and had persistently striven to cripple his labors 
and to bring him into reproach. Petty and superfluous as 
Paul must have regarded this assumption of the vow, he could 
yet conscientiously do it, seeing that it in no wise compromised 
the central principle of his ministry, justification by faith 
independently of the law of Moses. Indeed, his present course 
was but an exemplification of the rule of his apostleship : " I 
am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save 
some." 

"The Jews from Asia" had, from their point of view, abun- 
dant reason for attacking Paul. Asia, in its New Testament 
use, was a narrow strip of Asia Minor that bordered on the 
^Egean Sea. Of this district Ephesus was the chief city, and in 
Ephesus Paul had recently closed a most astonishing three 
years ministry. He " turned the world upside down " there. 
In the best meaning of the word his preaching was sensa- 
tional. With such irresistible power did he reason and per- 
suade " as to the things concerning the kingdom of God," 
first for three months in the synagogue and then for two 
years "in the school of Tyrannus," " that all they which dwelt 
in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks." 
" And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul," by 
means of which the strolling Jewish exorcists were overwhelmed 
and confounded. Fear fell upon all the people. " The name 
of the Lord Jesus was magnified." " Mightily grew the word 
of the Lord and prevailed." It was no wonder, then, that 
the Jews from Asia, stung by the recollection of the triumphs 
of that Ephesian ministry from which their ranks had so 



tESSON VII.] PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 28 1 

seriously suffered, were swift to wreak their vengeance upon 
the hated offender now that they had opportunity. The 
moment they saw him, without stopping to notice that in his 
christian generosity he was observing an ordinance of their 
own law, " they stirred up all the multitude " then crowding 
the temple-area at the Pentecostal feast, " and laid hands on 
him, crying out, men of Israel, help." They were on the 
point of beating the life out of him, when the Chiliarch or 
colonel of the Roman cohort " took soldiers and centurions 
and ran down upon them," carrying him off to the barracks 
in the Tower of Antonia. 

This experience of Paul at Jerusalem emphasizes two or three 
lessons of universal and permanent value, which we shall now 
consider : 

I. An aggressive Christianity encounters afflictions. 

If Jesus Christ has made anything clear it is surely this, that 
the loyalty of his disciples to himself will provoke persecu- 
tion. With a noble frankness, worthy of all admiration, he 
warned all would-be disciples of this inevitable fact. " I came 
not to send peace but a sword." " Behold, I send you forth 
as sheep in the midst of wolves." "If they persecuted me 
they will also persecute you." And they did persecute him 
even unto the humiliating, horrible, agonizing death by cruci- 
fixion. If his precepts were thus writ large and clear in his 
own example, why should his disciples expect to escape ? Paul 
followed his Lord in both teaching and precept. He wrote : 
" All that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecu- 
tion." Surely Paul lived "godly in Christ Jesus " and suffered 
persecution, as the scenes in his life that culminated in this one 
at Jerusalem sufficiently witness. The severity of his afflictions 
can be judged somewhat from his own account of them. " We 
were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch 
that we despaired even of life." He in effect fought with wild 
beasts at Ephesus, so fierce was his conflict with brutal and 



2 82 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. [T^trd QtaxIer, 

ferocious men. He well knew from the outset of this journey 
to Jerusalem that he was walking straight into a fiery furnace of 
tribulation •'"'exceedingly hot." All along the way •• the Holy 
Ghost testified " to him " in even* city " at which he stopped — 
Philippi, Troas, Assos, Tyre, Csesarea — " that bonds and afflic- 
tions " awaited him. 

Persecution has been the common lot of pronounced ambas- 
sadors of Christ, and. with shame be it said, that persecution has 
in many cases had origin with the so-called people of God 
themselves. Chrysostom, Savonarola, Huss, Wiclif, Luther. 
Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards. Hannington, the Waldenses, the 
Huguenots, the Covenanters, the Pilgrims : how ample was their 
heritage of persecution, and with what sublime heroism did they 
receive it ! 

T he suffering of affliction for Christ's sake is inevitable. Why 
it is so Jesus clearly stated to his unbelieving brothers, as he 
was about to start to Jerusalem to attend the last Feast of Tab- 
ernacles in his earthly ministry. u The world cannot hate you, 
but me it hateth, because I testify of it that its works are evil." 
This was the real reason of Paul's terrible treatment at Jeru- 
salem at the hands of the unbelieving Jews from Asia, and it 
has been the spring of all the persecution of Christ's followers 
the christian ages through. 

Persecution is as irrational as it is inevitable. Those Asiatic 
Jews incited the multitude against Paul on wholly false charges. 
Listen to them. "This is the man that teacheth all men every- 
where against the people, and the law, and this place : and 
moreover he brought Greeks also into the temple and hath 
defiled this holy ;iace.' r Even- count in this indictment was 
untrue. At the very moment in which they preferred it Paul's 
course as to the Nazarite vow proved its utter falsity. With 
the characteristic illogicalness of persecutors the Jews from 
Asia in the last item of their complaint leaped to the conclu- 
sion that Paul had desecrated the temDle. u For they had 



Lesson YU.] PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 2 £3 

before seen with him ' in the city ' Trophimiis the Ephesian, 
whom they 'supposed ' that Paul had brought into the temple." 

II. Afflictions manifest the depth of christian happiness. 

God's people are a happy people. They sing, and singing 
is the expression of spiritual joy. The Psalter is the consume 
mate flower of Jewish piety, and the Psalter, while containing 
many " houselike airs," as Bacon says, has its " carols " too. 
And the carols abound. If a psalm begins with the plaintive 
note of the turtle-dove it is sure to end with the cheerful song 
of the nightingale. And the psalmists almost to a man, be it 
remembered, sung out of afflicted hearts. One of them tri- 
umphantly breaks forth in his environment of sorrow : " Thou 
wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance." 

Christ's disciples sing for joy in the night of their tribula- 
tions, since Christ himself, who is their Life, possessed a serene 
joy that no afflictions could ruffle. So strong w r as his faith in 
his Father and his love for him, that these yielded him a peace 
whose tranquil deeps the cruel and unrelenting persecution of 
Pharisee and Sadducee had no power to disturb. When under 
the very shadow of the cross, he said to his disciples in a con- 
versation that was full of prophecy concerning the tribulations 
which were just ahead of him and them, " Peace I leave with 
you; my peace I give unto you." "Your joy no one taketh 
away from you." In that appalling hour his heart had peace 
and joy enough for itself and plenty to spare for the discon- 
solate hearts of his disciples. 

"The kingdom of God is joy and peace in the Holy Ghost." 
"Rejoice in the Lord alway ; again will I say, Rejoice." These 
are the words of a christian Apostle who amply verified them 
in a baptism of affliction beyond what all other Christians' ex- 
periences have known. In the thick of his sorrows he exult - 
ingly exclaimed, " I take pleasure in injuries, in persecutions. 
in distresses, for Christ's sake." " I overflow with joy in all 
our affliction." And who cannot feel, as he sympathetically 



284 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. [Third Quarter. 

reads the record of the Apostle's journey to Jerusalem, that, 
in spite of the presentiment of the churches and of their strong 
protest against his course, enforced by his own conviction that 
distress would befall him, an ineffable peace filled his heart as 
he prayed at Miletus and Tyre, and when, at Csesarea, he said, 
"The will of the Lord be done ! " Finally, at Jerusalem, when 
half dead by the terrible beating at the hands of the bigoted 
Jews, and while the frenzied mob was crying out, just as that 
other " multitude of the people " twenty-five years before had 
cried out in that same Jerusalem against Jesus, Paul's Lord, 
"Away with him ; " and after his honor had been deeply 
wounded by the chief captain's identifying him with the Egyp- 
tian impostor who had led four thousand daggermen out to 
the Mount of Olives against the Roman government, Paul's 
experience of his Lord's love was yet so delightful that he 
yearned to tell the glad-tidings to his very murderers, saying to 
the commander, " I beseech thee, give me leave to speak unto 
the people." 

III. Afflictions prove the strength of christian purpose. 

They both put it to the test and make it evident. "Tribula- 
tion worketh patience, and patience approvedness or tried 
character, and tried character hope." 

The crowning glory of Jesus was a glory of the will in the 
face of a relentless persecution that finally sent him to the 
cross. How strikingly this appears in Luke's description of 
him, " He set his face to go to Jerusalem." Stirred to the 
depth of his being by the awful issue of that last journey, he 
summoned to his aid his splendid reserve of will-force in an 
indomitable purpose to press on and meet his fate. This inim- 
itable resolve communicated itself to his body, transfusing 
his face with an expression of majesty, dilating his frame into 
a lofty and imposing grandeur, and transforming his mien into 
an august dignity that awed his disciples. Mark graphically 
paints the scene : "And they were in the way going up to Jeru- 



Lesson VII.] PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 285 

salem and Jesus was going before them ; and they were 
amazed ; and they that followed were afraid." 

Jesus' reign over a human soul culminates in the will. Unless 
he is king there he is no king at all. The history of his influ- 
ence over men has shown how splendidly he has commanded 
the will-energy of his true disciples in the development of such 
traits of character as fortitude, endurance, heroism, those vir- 
tues which are essentially martial in their temper and make 
their possessors " terrible as an army with banners." These 
soldierly qualities thrive under persecution. They seem unable 
to come to their best quality without it. 

Paul's last journey to Jerusalem and its climax in the scene 
in the temple were among the most convincing evidences of 
will-triumph in the midst of crushing afflictions, that the annals 
of heroism furnish. Despite the repeated testimony of the 
Holy Spirit that bonds and afflictions awaited him, he pressed 
on undaunted, the victor's cry bursting from his lips, " I go 
bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem." " I hold not my life of any 
account so that I may accomplish my course." His determin- 
ation was proof against the combined pleadings of the Ces- 
arean Christians and his travelling companions " not to go up 
to Jerusalem." His heart was breaking, but his resolution was 
inflexible. In the temple, when he was well-nigh dead from 
the violence of the fierce mob, his persistent purpose equally 
with his tenderest love found expression in his request to the 
military tribune: "May I say something unto thee?" "I 
beseech thee, give me leave to speak unto the people." 

The real heroes of the world are not the Alexanders, the 
Hannibals, the Caesars, the Napoleons, but Jesus, Paul, Am- 
brose, Augustine, Simeon, Brainerd, Carey, Mackay. These 
and such as these display the most exalted courage, confronting 
foes more invincible and threatening than any those great mili- 
tary chieftains ever faced on fields of carnage. For those chris- 
tian warriors stood " against the wiles of the devil, against the 



286 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. [Third Quarter. 

principalities, against the princes, against the rulers of this 
world's darkness." 

The lesson for us of our study of Paul at Jerusalem is this : 
It sounds out a clarion call to the disciples of Jesus in this 
generation, in all christian lands, for fidelity. In our time the 
love of temporal comfort is almost sovereign. Our sense-life 
is in sore peril of becoming insubordinate by the encouraging 
environment in which it passes its days. Our civilization is a 
selfish civilization. That huge and complex thing we call the 
world never before began to be as potent as it is now in benumb- 
ing spirituality. It is very easy to live a luxurious life. It is 
very hard to live a self-denying life for Jesus Christ's sake. 
His disciples must look out or the hero stuff will be quite 
eaten out of them, and they will degenerate into a company 
of mere good natured and innocent people, whom the world on 
the whole may like, but whose presence it will not feel. We 
need a resolute manhood that means to deny self till it hurts, 
to set itself with unflinching heroism against the enervating 
time-spirit, and to prosecute a robust ministry against the 
ingrained selfishness of human nature and the manifold wicked 
practices of this age. 

In the palmy days of the Roman legions, had a soldier con- 
sciously disobeyed the slightest wish of his commander, though 
unexpressed, a blush of shame would have mantled his cheek. 
The Apostle Paul, that " good soldier of Jesus Christ," thus 
owned his loyalty to the Captain of his salvation : " I am ready 
to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." A strong 
infusion into the blood of modern Christendom from the vein 
of such a martial purpose as that, would be the most whole- 
some tonic it could receive to day. 

"Am la. soldier of the cross, 
A follower of the Lamb, 
And shall / fear to own his cause, 
Or blush to speak his name ? " 



lessor; l/lll. f\uqu$t 20, 



PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 

Acts xxiv: 10-25. 
By Rev. THOMAS B. BARTXETT, Providenck, R. I. 

IN this straightforward narrative two characters are disclosed 
in sharp contrast. The outlines of each are made distinct 
by the presence of the other. Paul is the embodiment of 
moral strength. He shows the manly vigor of an ideal Chris- 
tian. Though a prisoner, greatly hated and in peril of life, he 
is self-possessed before the representative of Roman power, 
boldly answers the charges of his foes, keeps back nothing of 
his christian faith, and at last, at a favorable opportunity, makes 
a strong effort to reclaim his judge to virtue. Felix is the prey 
of moral weakness. While at the official examination he is dig- 
nified and impartial, the private, unofficial interview, when the 
Apostle, allowed to speak freely as a christian preacher, forces 
him to look righteousness in the face, presses upon him the 
duty of self-control and hangs over him the solemnities of the 
coming judgment, though he is moved for an instant even 
to terror, finds him unequal to the moral effort which repent- 
ance demands, and he seeks in delay escape from the pressure 
of the truth. Each spectacle is valuable. The example of 
Paul attracts to an earnest and courageous christian life ; the 
example of Felix repels from a career of sin. 

I. PAUL, THE STRONG SERVANT OF GOD. 

Paul stood before the highest tribunal in Judea. His accus- 
ers were his own countrymen, his judge was an unprincipled 



288 PAUL BEFORE FELLX. [Third Quarter. 

Roman. According to Tacitus, Felix " exercised the power of 
a king with the temper of a slave." Drusilla was another man's 
wife whom he had enticed from her husband. Jonathan, the 
high priest, had ventured to remonstrate with this immoral ruler, 
and forthwith assassins sought out the reprover and struck him 
down in the sanctuary. It required fortitude for an accused Jew 
to be calm before Felix the unrighteous. Of justice for Paul 
there was no hope ; a low self-interest would shape this judge's 
decision. Paul had no Tertullus to speak for him ; he made no 
plea for clemency, but boldly maintained his innocence. Tread- 
ing in the steps of the murdered high priest, he touched his 
judge's private life, even with Drusilla's eyes resting upon him, 
and with momentary but ominous mastery shook the judge's 
composure. 

Here was genuine courage. Before this example of heroism 
all shivering cowardice in the Lord's service should loathe itself. 
Something braver than running to a hiding-place when threatened 
is expected of true Christians. Christ is not satisfied merely 
with our repentance and submission. He would arouse us to 
lofty and divine courage. " Be not afraid of them that kill the 
body." Such words imply that Christians can be heroes. 

Oh, to be something, something ! 

Able to stand for the right, 
A faithful and valiant soldier, 

A hero girded with might. 

We need to sing for a while words like these to counteract 
the drowsiness which has crept over us in singing our hymns of 
trust in God. We need some bugle-blast to break our sleep 
if we are not to leave our noblest tasks untouched. Lost oppor- 
tunities are lost world without end, and forgiveness, having no 
power to make good the loss, is a poor consolation. 

The example of Paul in the circumstances before us ought 
to impel us to the active virtues, courage, self-reliance, zeal. 



Lesson VIII. ] PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 289 

We cannot but admire it, and we ought to be moved to imitate 
what we admire. 

1. There is pressing need of such virtues. Sin is about us 
in force : it must be resisted and put down. Upon us sin has 
laid its heavy chains, and they must be broken. Are we to 
wait motionless for a deliverer? We do ourselves and others 
a deep wrong when we represent the power of sin, strong as it 
is, as so great that the soul is helpless before it. Never yet 
did a soul in alliance with God valiantly withstand temptation 
and not win the victory. What mockery it would be to call 
upon us, as the Scripture does, to strive and watch and fight 
and stand fast and resist, if all this effort would amount to 
nothing. 

Besides this personal struggle against evil, there is an ardu- 
ous positive work to be done for righteousness on earth. The 
conflict between good and evil is continually at full heat. The 
Son of God has interposed and checked the onset of the 
enemy, only that he, remaining ever at hand, may lead every 
soul that owns him as king to a genuine though a costly 
advance. Here is the gospel : it must be lived and preached. 
Multitudes around us wait to be won to God. Earnestness 
and self-sacrifice must be had for their salvation. The nations 
are to hear heaven's message. What labor, demanding zeal 
and persistency, is called for to evangelize the world ! Christ 
has sent out his call for workers. His disciples must throw 
away sloth and self- depreciation and press onward to posts 
where crowns are won. 

2. Such courage and self-reliance are not opposed to reliance 
on God. It is not a contradiction at all for a man to have at 
the same time reliance on self and reliance on God. We need 
reliance on God if we are to accomplish anything great. We 
need reliance on self if we are to accomplish anything what- 
ever. Precisely with the men who have self-reliance God 
elects to work, men who count it but reasonable that they 

19 



29O PAUL BEFORE FELIX. [Third Quarter. 

should put their utmost exertion into effort on which they 
crave the blessing of heaven, who cheer their hearts with the 
Apostle's words, " we are God's fellow workers," workers, 
knowing the weariness of effort, workers, not idlers, workers 
with God the everlasting Worker. God will bless our efforts if 
there are any worthy efforts to be blessed. 

Why the perpetual complaint by Christians of deficiency and 
weakness ? Are God's people the feeblest folk on earth ? Have 
the men with one talent changed their disposition and flocked 
to Christ's standard, while all better-endowed souls have gone 
elsewhere ? And how long must that poor solitary talent take 
comfort in publishing its loneliness ? Who is not weary of this 
plaintive cry of feebleness from the lips of God's saints? Of 
course, weakness does not flee away at the prayer for pardon. 
Moral strength does not come up in a night even in the heart 
of a saint. Some must go on crutches for a while if they have 
lamed themselves in the service of sin. But it is pitiable to see 
so many able-bodied soldiers applying for hospital beds. The 
flower of the host is not really disabled. The shout of courage 
should be oftener heard in our camp. A different ideal of 
true humility must grow luminous before our imagination. 

The Apostle supplies this. He deemed a certain reliance on 
self justifiable and obligatory, because into that self God had 
put so much of his own power. How many holy influences, 
how much christian work, what unmeasured power of God's 
spirit have been expended upon each of us to make him what 
he is, acquainted with the letter and the spirit of the gospel, 
sensitive to the call of duty, caring somewhat for Christ's 
honor ! Is the sacred fire burned in vain ? Is there not a 
new hero's devotion kindled, a new conqueror fitted for 
achievement ? Some of us are like Samson, asleep ; the power 
to carry away a city's gates is in us and we move not. In every 
christian congregation there is material for scores of aggressive 
saints. Though disciples for years some are still babes. Pos- 



Lesson VIII.] PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 29 1 

sible achievements by which they might be longest remembered 
with gratitude are not yet seriously undertaken. In God's 
name I charge with folly this false humility and causeless self- 
distrust which hold us still or make us timid when we might be 
with young giants' strength and young apostles' fidelity and zeal 
working for God. We have a right to expect that God will 
help us still, but who shall deem as naught the divine help that 
has already come? Manly reliance on self is, for the Chris- 
tian, only reliance on what God has already done to equip him 
for service. Oh, for the spirit that is not content simply to be 
blessed, but longs to impart blessings ; not driven from its high 
purpose by frowns or jeers or pains, or discouraged by diffi- 
culty, but able to withstand sharp opposition, to convince the 
gainsayers, and, if need be, to face principalities and powers ! 
" I will tarry at Ephesus . . . for there are many adver- 
saries" said this spirit in Paul, and the foe soon confessed that 
the immemorial enchantment of Diana was on the wane. 
"Weep not for me," said this heavenly heroism in the heart of 
Jesus as he took his way from the scourge to the cross, and the 
throne of iniquity trembled under his step. Such a spirit is 
above the contempt of earth. But though it is high we must 
attain unto it. If it could only become common in God's host 
the ancient dominion of sin would soon be shaken. 

II. FELIX, BOLD ONLY IX DELAY. 

The preacher had not left it uncertain that what God demands 
is repentance. Felix knew that just then, while Paul was 
speaking for God, just there where he sat by Drusilla's side, 
he ought to renounce sin and turn to righteousness. He 
trembled, but he did not repent. Sin never before seemed to 
him so perilous, and he decided that sometime he must leave 
it. He was ready to answer the preacher with real respect : 
" What you urge is true. I ought to live a different life, but do 



2C)2 PAUL BEFORE FELIX. [Third Quarter; 

not press me now. The time for change will come, but not 
now." Felix delayed his conversion. Two years went by and 
he came no nearer to Christ. On leaving Judea, he chose to 
leave Paul in chains. In fact, there is not one hint in Scripture 
that Felix ever became a Christian. 

Here is warning against putting off repentance. Repent- 
ance may never come. But what if a man does after awhile 
become a Christian, is nothing to be said against the delay? 
Can a man neglect submission to God for a term of years, yet 
when he accepts pardon say truly : I ran a great risk but it is 
all right now ; I am safe, and it is well ? Is it only the risk of 
being lost forever that makes delay in accepting Christ deplora- 
ble ? Over the peril of impenitent lives the alarm has often 
been sounded ; it has not been struck so often over the nearer 
peril. Men have been warned against the risk of delay, but 
they are not much moved. The danger seems remote. They 
do not see the injury inevitably caused by the delay. 

With Felix before us, we will consider this weighty truth, 
too seldom urged, that impenitence every day it lasts produces 
irreparable loss. Delayed conversion means continued sin, 
and sin damages the sinner himself and others. The effect of 
sin upon the soul is not taken away instantly by repentance and 
pardon. We drag along into the christian life the enfeebled 
will, the grown-up selfishness, the impaired spiritual capacity 
which we acquired in the years of impenitence. We expect 
strength for God's work, for instant nobility. We look for fervor 
in the divine mission we have begun to love, and they are 
not forthcoming. Why this want of sustained zeal for God ? 
The fruitful cause of it all is found in our sinful past. We 
bear the marks of our wandering. Forgiveness releases us from 
divine condemnation ; it does not at once, if ever, repair the 
damage of a sinful course. 

Again, the ill influence of the old bad life on others is not 
arrested. Delaying repentance, we throw the weight of our exam- 



Lesson VIII.] PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 293 

pie against our friends' conversion and encourage others in sin, 
and our pardon does not undo what we have thus done. The 
stone has been dropped and it must fall. It is not often given 
to men to lead the same souls two opposite ways. Those who 
betray them into sin seldom lead them back to Christ. Saul of 
Tarsus could inspire in less intense souls a fierce hate for 
Christ's disciples. He thought, at his conversion, that he of all 
men was best fitted to lead them to Christ. " Haste, get thee 
out of Jerusalem : they will not receive thy testimony," said the 
divine voice. " I will send thee far hence." 

Delayed conversion means lost opportunities. Along our 
path from childhood to age there are many occasions for heav- 
enly deeds. The hours require a soul loyal to God, instantly 
ready to speak and act with firm courage, able to look sin into 
shame. How often, when called, have we been unprepared 
for such holy achievements ? We could not be heroic, for we 
still wore captive's chains, and the opportunities were lost. 
The victories of to-day were prepared years ago. The precious 
season of preparation for future power may be wasted by daily 
disobedience to God's call. Some equipment for christian ser- 
vice can be given before conversion. But this is difficult and 
only partial. Great duties are duties for which only matured 
Christians are ready. How many to-day in God's service gave 
themselves no christian apprenticeship, so that they now hesi- 
tate before every exacting duty, being but half-equipped? 
They walk with children's steps along manhood's path. If our 
childhood had been given to untarnished uprightness, we . 
should have had in youth a degree of moral strength and a 
clearness of vision which would have carried us safely through 
many of youth's temptations. Had our youth been unsullied 
and morally victorious, we should have brought to our maturity 
a stability of character and a nobleness of spirit which would 
have served us well in meeting the severest demands upon our 
moral strength. 



294 PAUL BEFORE FELIX. [Third Quarter. 

It is clear that in secular life neglect of preparation in youth 
stands at many a parting of ways in later years and forbids a 
man's choice, saying. " You cannot take the path up the 
heights. You must go the lower road." Many a man in such 
case has bowed to the inevitable, sorrowing in vain over his loss. 
But men dream that in the spiritual life, under redemption. 
they may escape in later years the weakness resulting from 
youthful impenitence. We fancy that pardon will repair every 
injury inflicted by an evil life. Pardon arrests the condemna- 
tion of God, gives us divine help and the hope of recovery 
from ruin. " We are saved in hope." But pardon never 
restores lost character. Character is a growth ; it comes in 
well doing and strengthens by conflict: it cannot, like forgive- 
ness, be gotten in an instant. Late conversion ! Repentance 
when of age ! What a slight injur}- we imagined would be 
wrought by the delay. As though sin could rob us of priceless 
years and then send us, even after contrition, along the path to 
heaven with step duly firm. Look at the specimens of tardy 
penitence whom you know. They have renounced sin ; are 
there no marks of the forsaken evil upon them? They are 
serving God, but how the consequences of their former life 
cling to them in their heavenly march ! How the shadows of 
our sins dog our footsteps, obtrude themselves in our best 
endeavors, and oppress us with their weight as we kneel before 
God: 

Even the redeemed soul may be barely saved, as though 
snatched from the burning heap of its earthly deeds. Of such 
a one. who yet enters heaven. Paul said, " he shall suffer loss." 
Ah. sad shall be the loss if a soul delays the choice of the only 
foundation, persists in rebellion against truth and carelessly 
lets years of opportunity pass away unused ! 

Some, it may be, -will maintain that there is after all a certain 
incidental advantage in delaying repentance. " Let us first 
see the world," they say, " and then when we become Chris- 



Lesson VIII.] 



PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 



295 



tians we shall know how to fight sin." This not uncommon 
plea for postponing conversion needs answer. It means that 
an acquaintance with sin by committing it will be a prepara- 
tion for christian service. Men point to Jerry MacAuley of 
New York who was saved from lowest degradation, yet worked 
successfully for the degraded. I will not caricature this 
thought ; it is too appalling. I will only answer that the One 
who can perfectly sympathize with us all and who has brought 
hope to all sinners considered that the preparation he needed 
for his task was absolute freedom from sin. Jesus was pure in 
heart, never required repentance ; and yet publicans and sin- 
ners flocked to him as doves to their windows. Sinners need 
the aid of those who are above their sin yet not proud or 
apathetic toward them. We can learn all we need to know 
about sin without letting it play havoc with our lives. We can 
view in others its stealthy approach, its full mastery, and the 
destruction it makes. We require no nearer view. We do 
not need to see fire leaping through kitchen and parlor, 
mounting from floor to floor, breaking through window and 
roof in our own dwelling in order to feel how terrible a thing 
is a burning home. Behold, now is the accepted time. Let 
the past of our lives suffice the unfruitful works of darkness. 
From this moment we will wear the armor of light. 



lessoi? I/. flu<?ust 27. 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 

Acts xxvi: 19-32. 
By Rev. H. M. KING, D. D., Providence, R. I. 

FELIX, the Roman procurator, before whom Paul had been 
tried at Caesarea, and by whom he should have been 
acquitted, had been recalled in disgrace. Portius Fes- 
tus was his successor in office, a man of very different mould 
and character, of whom it is said that he " had a straightforward 
honesty about him, which forms a strong contrast to the mean 
rascality of his predecessor." Felix, having been unsuccessful 
in extorting a bribe from the xApostle as the price of his release, 
had left him a prisoner at Caesarea in the hope of thereby 
appeasing the Jews enraged by his oppression and cruelty. 
" Paul paid the penalty of a pure conscience by wearing his 
chain." For two years he had been incarcerated within the 
walls of the prgetorium, when Festus, the new governor, arrived ; 
yet in all this time the fierce enmity of the Jews against their 
imprisoned fellow-countryman had not abated one jot, nor had 
they given up their eagerness to find some opportunity to put 
him to death. The change of administration and the arrival of 
Festus filled them with hope that they could now accomplish 
their murderous purpose. 

Three days after Festus landed at the Roman capital, he 
went up to Jerusalem to put himself in friendly relations with 
the people over whom he was to rule. At once the new chief 



Lesson IX.] PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 297 

priest, Ishmael, successor of Ananias, and the most influential 
man of the Jews, sought to take advantage of his friendliness 
and inexperience, and secure the execution of the long impris- 
oned Apostle of Christ. This was the demand with which they 
met the new governor. But they had mistaken his spirit. His 
reply was a noble one. " It is not the manner of the Romans 
to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have 
the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for him- 
self concerning the crime laid against him." Foiled in this 
plan, they demanded that Paul be brought to Jerusalem for 
trial, intending to assassinate him on the road. Festus, possi- 
bly informed of their wicked purpose, refused to accede to their 
wishes. Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and should be tried 
there. He himself would return shortly, and then they could 
bring whatever accusations they had against the prisoner. The 
trial was held. The charges against Paul were heresy, profana- 
tion of the temple, and offense against Caesar. In the judg- 
ment of Festus they were frivolous or unsubstantiated, and in 
no way rendered the prisoner worthy of death. He would have 
acquitted him at once, had not the fierce opposition of the Jews 
constrained him to make the concession of a joint hearing at 
Jerusalem. Then it was that Paul asserted his right as a Roman 
citizen, and appealed unto Caesar, an appeal from which there 
was no appeal, preferring to submit himself to the unknown 
mercies of a heathen emperor rather than to the well-known 
temper of his bigoted countrymen. To the hunted and perse- 
cuted Apostle this seemed the only way of escape from a trial 
in which his judges and his accusers would be one and the 
same party. He appealed to Caesar, to Caesar he must go. 

While Festus was waiting for an opportunity to dispatch his 
prisoner to Rome, a memorable scene occurred, a scene in 
which the kingly greatness of the Apostle was put in striking 
contrast with the titled littleness of those whom men called 
kings, and God's prophecy had its literal fulfilment — " He is 



298 PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. [Third Quarter. 

a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, 
and kings, and the children of Israel." King Agrippa II, the 
last of the Herods, the ignoble son of ignoble sires, had come 
on a visit to Festus, to pay his respects and congratulations to 
the new Roman governor. With him he brought Bernice, his 
sister, the sharer of his rank and of his shame. Agrippa II was 
not, like his father, " the king of the Jews," but possessed only a 
partial empire, and that with limited authority. The inspired 
historian accurately calls him simply " the king." " He prac- 
tically became a mere gilded instrument to keep order for the 
Romans, with whom it was essential that he remain on good 
terms. They in their turn found it desirable to flatter the 
harmless vanities of a phantom royalty." 

Soon after the arrival of Agrippa and Bernice at Caesarea, 
Festus referred to the Jewish prisoner whom he held, and about 
whom he was not a little perplexed. The king, who had 
undoubtedly heard of the Apostle and was not unacquainted 
with his professed faith and the charges against him, expressed 
a wish to see and hear him, a wish which Festus was only too 
willing to gratify, hoping to learn something from Paul's lips on 
which to base an intelligent report of his case to the emperor. 

The day for the hearing was fixed. It was in no sense a 
trial. Paul's appeal had put an end to that. It was an exhi- 
bition designed to gratify a prurient and it may be contemptu- 
ous curiosity, and at the same time the vanity of Roman host 
and Jewish guests. It was a show occasion. It is expressly 
stated that they came together "with great pomp." The 
Roman procurator, clothed in scarlet and surrounded by lictors, 
Agrippa with all the insignia of his little royalty and his gaily 
dressed attendants, and Bernice flashing with jewels, the great 
captains and the chief citizens who had been invited — all were 
there, a curious, self-conscious and unsympathetic assembly. 
Into the presence of this thoughtless and bedizened company 
the humble Apostle of the new spiritual faith was ushered, upon 



Lesson IX.] PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 299 

his pale and emaciated countenance the marks of his long con- 
finement, his only insignia the prisoner's chain which hung 
clanking from his empurpled wrist. 

It was a most impressive scene, impressive by reason of its 
physical and moral contrasts, power and apparent weakness, 
luxury and poverty, pride and humility, pampered self-indul- 
gence and suffering self-denial, thoughtlessness and seriousness, 
inhumanity and tender sympathy, licentiousness and purity, 
scepticism and a sublime faith in God and in spiritual things. 
Being permitted to speak for himself, Paul slowly stretched 
forth his manacled hand to arrest attention, and with marvelous 
skill, and great self-possession and confidence, and an auda- 
cious moral earnestness, proceeded to tell the story of his ex- 
emplary Jewish life, the supernatural call that came to him, and 
the divine mission on which he was sent, " to open the eyes of 
Jews and Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive for- 
giveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanc- 
tified by faith that is in Christ." Never did an orator use more 
consummate art in his address. Never did a holy purpose 
seize an occasion more firmly or employ it with such determi- 
nation to a given end. Never did a man more earnestly seek 
to convert an unexpected opportunity into a glorious victory. 
Though he spoke to all the motley company, he turned his 
thought and his eye especially to the king, whom again and 
again he addressed personally, respectfully calling him by name. 
It was a most eloquent defence, combined with a most adroit 
appeal. The appeal was based upon the assumed familiarity of 
the king with the Jewish faith, upon his loyal adherence to 
national and prophetic traditions, and upon his generous open- 
ness to conviction, assumptions which required a great stretch 
of charity on the part of the Apostle. The defence centered, 
as in his address to the mob on the castle-stairs, in his super 
natural vision of the Christ and in his miraculous conversion. 



300 PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. [Third Quarter. 

How could a man who had had such an experience be any dif- 
ferent from what he was, or do aught different from what he did ? 
How could a man be amenable to human law who was simply 
carrying out the instructions of the Divine Lawgiver, as made 
known in the sacred writings of his people, and re-enforced, 
and illuminated and fulfilled in the Prophet who was to come, 
and who had come and been crucified and raised from the 
dead, and by an actual manifestation of his glorified person had 
conquered the opposition of his heart and enlisted him in his 
own blessed service? 

As the Apostle was borne along on the tide of his eloquent 
and realistic narration, he exclaimed, "Whereupon, O King 
Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." It 
was that vision that had changed him from a persecutor to a 
disciple, that had opened his eyes to the truth, that had turned 
the course of his life, that had constrained him to a new career 
of duty and service. God who had spoken unto the fathers by 
the prophets, had spoken to his heart by his Son, whose supe- 
rior authority he dared not disobey. And so he became a 
preacher of repentance and true righteousness at Damascus, on 
the road to which the Lord met him, at Jerusalem where 
Christ died and rose again, in all Judea which was the scene of 
much of his earthly ministry, and then, according to explicit 
instruction, to the Gentiles, who were also included in Christ's 
redemptive plan and purpose. When Paul preached the gospel 
in "all the coasts of Judea," we do not know; but this was the 
adopted business of his life. He could cross no territory and 
visit no country without proclaiming the riches of God's grace 
in Christ. Indeed all his journeyings and all his tarryings were 
determined by this supreme motive. This was the innocent 
business in which he was engaged, and it was for this reason 
and no other that his countrymen hated him, and hounded 
him, and sought to kill him, and had finally succeeded in 
arresting him in the temple, God having protected and sustained 



Wesson IX.] PAUL BEFORE AGRlPfA. ;$OI 

him hitherto by his gracious power. Moreover, Paul declared 
that his testimony was in entire harmony with the sacred 
writings of his people, Moses and the prophets, whom they all 
professed to honor, having foretold distinctly the sufferings of 
the Messiah, his resurrection from the dead, and the dawn of a 
new and brighter day upon the Jewish and Gentile world. 
Paul was but a developed Jew, a Jew to whose mind his own 
scriptures had been unfolded, a Jew with a broader and truer 
faith, a Jew who had a vision of the promised Messiah. In the 
light of that vision unbelief had given place to certainty, and 
hatred to love, so that there came to his soul a new life and a 
new obedience. 

What is any conversion but the soul's vision of Christ? Not 
in the same supernatural way in which it came to Saul of 
Tarsus, with the dazzling light, the prostrate form, the audible 
voice, and the temporary blindness ; but a genuine apprehen- 
sion of Jesus as the Son of God, the atoning Saviour, the divine 
Teacher and Lord, the one altogether lovely and chief among 
ten thousand. Such a vision converts doubt into personal 
faith, and hostility or indifference into glad obedience, and 
quickens the soul into a new spiritual life. 

Festus had up to this time sat mute under the impassioned 
eloquence of his prisoner, more and more astonished, it may 
be, by the strange words which fell from his lips about the 
flashing light from heaven, the pleading voice, the distinct con- 
versation, the marvelous transformation of character and con- 
duct as the result of that mysterious interview, the sacred 
prophecies and their exact fulfilment, and above all the divine 
prophet who had been crucified, and was declared to have 
risen from the dead, and was proclaimed as the author of for- 
giveness and the light of the whole world, Gentile as well as 
Jewish. This was too much for the sceptical, practical mind of 
the Roman. He could restrain himself no longer. Excitedly 
he interrupted the Apostle, who seemed to him to have lost his 



$02 PAUL BEFORE AGRtPPA. [Third Quarter. 

mental balance amid the study of prophecy and the seeing of 
visions and resurrections. "Paul thou art beside thyself; 
much learning doth make thee mad." This is the judgment of 
a cold, materialistic philosophy which scouts all faith in the 
supernatural, and can account for the sublime facts of Chris- 
tianity only as the baseless dreams of visionaries. The friends 
of Christ thought him beside himself, and his enemies pro- 
nounced him mad and possessed of a devil. On the day of 
Pentecost the multitude mistook the influence of the Holy 
Spirit for the effect of fermented spirits. This was not the 
first time that the same charge had been brought against 
Paul. Materialism blind, earth-bound, unspiritual, is forever 
relegating miracles, inspiration, conversion, Christ, Christianity 
and heaven to the category of hallucinations, and those who 
believe in them to the asylum of lunatics. 

Paul with great tact and courtesy met the accusation of Fes- 
tus with a simple denial, and appealed to the king in confirma- 
tion of what he had said, who must have been cognizant of 
the facts alleged, so great was their publicity, for they occurred 
at the very metropolis of the nation and in connection with a 
great national festival. And then the Apostle pushed home the 
personal appeal, but in a manner most delicate and compli- 
mentary. " King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I 
know that thou believest." 

The king, confused by the turn which the hearing had taken, 
having received more than he bargained for at the beginning, 
ashamed, it may be, to confess what he honestly felt, and un- 
willing to be entrapped into a public discussion, met the Apos- 
tle's appeal with sarcasm and contempt. " In a little thou per- 
suadest me to be a Christian ! " Whatever may have been his 
inward emotions, he would turn to ridicule the purpose of the 
Apostle to make of the Jewish king an easy convert to the 
despised Nazarene. On the other hand, noble, generous, seri- 
ous, pathetic was Paul's reply, as taking advantage of the king's 



Lesson IX.J PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 303 

phrase, he exclaimed with all the earnestness of his renewed 
soul, "I would to God that, whether 'in little 'or 'in much,' 
not only thou, but even all who hear me this day, might become 
such as I am, except these bonds." 

Once more the royal family of Judea had been brought testingly 
into relation to the christian religion. Little may Agrippa II 
have reflected that it w r as his great-grandfather Herod who had 
commanded the massacre of the innocents, that it was his great- 
uncle Antipas, who had murdered John the Baptist and mocked 
Christ preparatory to his crucifixion, and that it was his father 
Agrippa I who had executed James the Elder, and imprisoned 
Peter, and that death or disgrace had come to each of them in 
swift vengeance thereafter. No such serious reflection proba- 
bly came to his vain and frivolous spirit. It was his turn now. 
Upon his heart fell the burning words of Paul, to melt or to 
sear, words of reproof, of instruction, of persuasion, closing in 
one last impassioned appeal to him and his companions on 
trial (for it was their trial, not Paul's) to acknowledge the cru- 
cified and risen Christ, and be saved forever. Will his con- 
duct differ from that of his ancestors ? Will he be melted or 
hardened ? 

To find nothing in Paul worthy of death was not to find him 
the Apostle of eternal life. To acquit him and wish him his 
liberty was not to receive through his message the liberty of the 
sons of God. To say " he has appealed to Caesar, to Caesar he 
must go," was not to appeal anxiously to the Apostle of Christ 
saying, "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" The king rose 
and took his place in the company of his ancestors, and of 
all rejectors of Jesus Christ. 

The scene so impressive and suggestive was over. To Paul 
it was no "show occasion." He had been permitted to speak 
for himself. Christianity had had a hearing, which was more 
than it always receives. But it demands more than this. It 
demands not only to be heard, but to be heard patiently, can- 



304 PATJL BEFORE AGRtPPA. [Third Quarter. 

didly, seriously and without prejudice. The nature and trans- 
cendent importance of its truths give to it a claim upon the 
thoughtful consideration of every person, whatever his station 
in life. 

But Paul spoke not only for himself but of himself. He 
spoke out of his own experience. He was no theorizer. The 
truths he preached had been verified in his heart and life. The 
truth experienced and obeyed is truth made real and positive. 
It gives character to preaching and teaching. Obedience 
gives certainty to faith and conviction to utterance. Obey the 
heavenly vision and it will no longer remain simply a vision. 
It becomes a part of life. Paul knew that Christ was a risen 
Christ, because himself was a risen man. No man can reason 
you out of what you have experienced. Experience is the best 
interpreter of truth, and at the same time its unanswerable argu- 
ment and a mighty weapon for its propagation. Paul's greatest 
sermons were the recital of his personal experience. 

The Apostle was undoubtedly disappointed at the result of 
his effort. For it was not his own defense but the conversion 
of his hearers to Christ that he aimed at and prayed for. The 
audience was a most hopeless one, but he knew God was al- 
mighty. The anxious seed-sowing was followed by no signs of 
harvest. The eloquence of inspiration was parried by Roman 
scepticism. The sword of the Spirit failed to penetrate a Jew- 
ish sneer. But the brave Apostle had done his whole duty, and 
must leave results with God, a thing not always easy to do. 

The Apostle, acquitted in the judgment of the rulers, was 
left a prisoner by reason of his appeal to the emperor. Be- 
fore him was the perilous voyage, the shipwreck, the imperial 
city. By the strange providence of God, the longing of his 
heart and his frequent purpose which had been as frequently 
hindered, were to be fulfilled, and he was to have fruit among 
them in Rome also, by his preaching, by his bonds, and by his 
martyr-blood. 



lessen? /. S e P temt>er 3- 



PAUL SHIPWRECKED. 

Acts xxvii: 30-44. 



By Rev. W. S. APSKY, D. D., North Cambridge, Mass. 



THIS lesson is a simple piece of history. We do not pro- 
pose to turn it into allegory, or search in it for fanciful 
analogies between the material and the spiritual. It is an 
account of real experience, the record of a great soul in a great 
crisis. As such, it illustrates the dealings of God with men, 
and emphasizes certain fundamental truths of revelation. 

I. The first impression one receives in the study of this 
fascinating story is that of the Apostle's unique personality, 
perfectly adapted to the divine purposes. From the begin- 
ning, the singular influence of his character is felt on all who 
surround him. He goes ashore at Sidon by express permission 
of the centurion having him in charge, who must answer with 
his own life should his prisoner escape from custody. Notice 
that the military officer treats his alien captive with utmost kind- 
ness, suffering him to visit his friends and refresh himself, though 
the ship only touches at that port. The farther he goes and 
the more exigent the circumstances, the more distinctly does 
Paul loom into prominence and leadership. Captain, owner, 
centurion and historian all do him obeisance. 

The captive Hebrew is master of every situation. Off the 
Cretan coast he apprehends danger and, owing to the rising 
tempest and the lateness of the season, counsels against con- 

20 



306 PAUL SHIPWRECKED. [Third Quarter. 

tinuing the voyage then. " I perceive " he says, or "I have 
reason to think " [Hackett] " that the voyage will be with 
injury and much loss, not only of the lading and the ship, but 
also of our lives." He is overruled, but the unwisdom of the 
decision is soon apparent. The history becomes tragedy and 
deepens to the end. When the Apostle next speaks the storm 
is howling through the shrouds, and all hope of succor has fled. 
All superfluous gear is tossed overboard, and soon the cargo 
goes with it into the deep. Famished and shivering, officers, 
passengers and crew huddle together expecting momentary 
death. But " Paul stands forth in the midst of them," calm, 
heroic, undaunted. He no longer deals in opinions, but speaks 
now as one having authority. He has been into the " secret 
place of the Most High." He has seen the invisible. He 
has been in touch with " the powers of the world to come." 
Having received a message from God, he speaks with assur- 
ance. Be of good cheer; there shall be no loss of life. I 
have seen an angel of God. He said to me, " Fear not Paul, 
thou must stand before Caesar. I believe God. It shall be as 
he hath spoken unto me ; but we must be cast upon a certain 
island." When the sailors would stealthily take to the boat 
and make for the shore, leaving the rest to their fate, the 
Apostle again declares with authority, " except these abide in 
the ship, ye cannot be saved," and the soldiers at once cut 
the boat adrift. 

This brief narrative is in some sense an epitome of the great 
Apostle's entire life. It was not often or ever for long that 
" the south wind blew softly " over the seas on which he sailed. 
There were many other days in his career " when neither sun 
nor stars appeared and no small tempest lay upon him." He 
weathered more than one Euroclydon. His soul entered into 
peace at last only through the wreck of his buffeted and 
broken body. 

Of St. Paul's character and influence we cannot hope to say 



Lesson X.] PAUL SHIPWRECKED. 307 

here anything new, but his demeanor amidst the scenes 
described in the lesson so strikingly illustrates certain facts and 
truths of Scripture, that we are impelled to notice briefly two of 
them. The first is the reality of the spiritual world. Paul's 
insight reaches beyond the sensuous. His is a divine clairvoy- 
ance. " There stood by me this night an angel of God, whose 
I am and whom I serve." The voice of God penetrates his 
soul. His message from the " Holy of Holies" is no cun- 
ningly worded oracle, susceptible of many interpretations, 
concealing thought rather than expressing it. It is clear, terse, 
absolute : " I have seen an angel." "Thou must stand before 
Caesar." "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." 
" There shall not a hair of your heads perish." There is a holy 
dogmatism which befits the souls to whom God and angels and 
the world to come are actual entities. Of many things they 
speak by authority. Not arrogance moves them when they 
say : "We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be 
dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal, in the heavens." " We know whom we have 
believed and are fully persuaded that he is able to keep that 
which we have committed unto him against that day." In the 
realm of the spiritual, likeness is contact ; unlikeness is distance. 
"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him." To his 
friends he reveals all the mysteries of his love and grace. 

The second thought suggested by the part which the Apostle 
plays in this story is the old yet ever new one of the power of 
God's grace in man's heart and -life. Grace loses nothing by 
having an inherently great nature for the basis of its work. 
Paul would have been a ruling spirit anywhere. His intellectu- 
ality, his enthusiasm as manifest even before his conversion, his 
great executive ability, his tremendous will power, his trans- 
parent sincerity whether wrong or right, his loyalty to whatever 
authority made good to his mind its claim to service, and his 
unquestioned courage, constitute a combination of traits and 



308 PAUL SHIPWRECKED. [Third Quarter. 

faculties never equalled on the plane of the merely natural. In 
choosing Saul of Tarsus for the accomplishment of his pur- 
poses, God chose one of the mightiest of the sons of men, yet 
was there on this account no less but far greater opportunity for 
grace to work its marvels and its triumphs. Such was the 
man's natural greatness that grace had in him a wider sweep 
than in the case of smaller mortals. In this instance divine 
grace touched every faculty with supernal lustre, gave to every 
energy a new and upward bent, poured a divine life into every 
affection and passion, and flooded and transfigured the whole 
spiritual nature with " a light that never was on land or sea." 
No doubt God can utilize not only relative but absolute 
weakness and ignorance for the accomplishment of his plans, 
yet he does not prefer weakness to strength. His choice of 
instruments and agencies proves this. His glory does not 
suffer by the use of greatest talent, ripest culture, most indom- 
itable energy. As a rule, the most powerful men in his king- 
dom have been men of great intellectuality, of magnanimous 
spirit, of high and resolute purpose. They have found and 
accomplished their mission because of peculiar natural adapta- 
tion thereto. God has never, either by his choice of agents or 
by any supernatural endowment of weakness or ignorance, put 
a premium on mediocrity and indolence. It was necessary 
for the accomplishment of the work for which he was fore- 
ordained that St. Paul should be born of Jewish parents in a 
Gentile city; that the culture of both Greek and Hebrew 
schools should mingle in his mental training ; that though a 
Pharisee of Pharisees he should also be a Roman citizen ; 
that while physically infirm, he should be capable of enduring 
prolonged hardships ; that he should combine the tenderness 
of woman with the courage of the stoutest soldier ; that he 
should be shrewd without trickery, steadfast without bigotry, 
yielding to custom and circumstance, yet never sacrificing 
principle, "all things to all men that he might by all means 



Lesson X.l PAUL SHIPWRECKED. 369 

save some." These elements and many more met and mingled 
in the Apostle's rare and majestic personality, and their effect 
on his character and conduct is discernible even during the 
short period covered by this voyage. 

II. This narrative makes it evident that the force occasion- 
ing and shaping the events which it records, was the purpose 
and providence of God. The keynote of the story is sounded 
in those words to Paul, " Thou must stand before Caesar." The 
divine plan required that the foremost man in the kingdom of 
Christ should visit the world's capital, should plead the cause 
of his Master at the imperial court, should win recruits for the 
army of his Lord in the household of Caesar. Apparent hin- 
drances to that plan had no real effect in delaying its consum- 
mation. The contrary winds, the multiplied landings, the 
transfer from ship to ship, the boisterous seas, the utter wreck 
"on a stern and rock-bound coast," and the tedious wintering 
in Malta, were all tributary to the fulfilment of a gracious and 
far-reaching design. It was none the less a single and control- 
ling purpose, because of its complexity. " God fulfils himself 
in many ways." The tacking ships bore the incarnate decree 
of heaven as successfully to its destination as a single ship 
would have done running all the way before the wind. The 
relays that were essential were at hand, so that message and 
messenger were carried safely into the Eternal City. 

We may not be able to define the exact relation of Paul's 
work in Rome to the subsequent spread of the gospel and the 
strengthening of the kingdom of Christ. It may not be ours to 
trace in history the effects on the general result. The spiritual 
" voltage " we are not able to measure. But that the choicest 
spirit of the age was at the great centre of an empire's activity 
in a crucial period of human history ; that his work, done 
while the bright day lasted, is still telling on the ages and telling 
for God, of this there can be no question. And he was there 
by predestination, by design, in the direct providence of God. 



310 PAUL SHIPWRECKED. [Third Quarter. 

He kindled his fires not on the summits of the hills, like the 
Greeks when they announced the downfall of Troy, but in 
the crowded cities of the empire, from Jerusalem to Rome. 
Amid all the intricacies and cross activities and apparent 
inharmonies of his career, the purpose of God, vital, intelligent, 
and unconquerable, is the * spirit of life within the wheels." 

III. This history also vividly illustrates the province of the 
human in the execution of the divine plans. The zigzag 
course of the vessel during much of the voyage, shows us, as in 
diagram, the purpose of God as affected by human action, 
apparently deflected, modified, halted entirely amidst the 
breakers in " St. Paul's Bay ; " yet in reality, unchanged, 
unarrested and always steadily moving to its destiny at Puteoli. 
Within the bounds of the divine decree there is ample scope 
for all legitimate human action. It has been shown by compe- 
tent sailors acquainted with the seas traversed by Paul, that all 
three of the ships which bore him were skilfully navigated ; 
that soundest judgment was exercised from first to last in 
handling them. Any other management of the wrecked vessel 
in that fierce typhoon would have caused it either to be 
swallowed up in African quicksands, or to be foundered with 
all on board in mid-sea. When the crisis came, the rescue 
was accomplished in the most commonplace and human way. 
The swimmers struck out first for land ; the rest seized boards 
and broken pieces of the ship, or anything within reach. They 
were swept upon the beach, drenched, shivering and exhausted, 
but all alive. God had verified his promise and had given 
Paul all them that sailed with him ; but he did it through the 
ordinary use of natural powers. 

God's sovereignty and the free agency of man have occa- 
sioned no end of controversy. The inner harmonies of the 
two defy the niceties of human speech and baffle the compre- 
hension of finite faculties ; yet that they are compatible and 
not antagonistic, Scripture everywhere teaches, not by formal 



Lesson X.] PAUL SHIPWRECKED. 31I 

argument indeed but by bold statement. The predestined 
crucifixion of Christ did not lessen the deliberate wickedness 
of his murderers. "The determinate counsel and fore-knowl- 
edge of God " did not lessen their responsibility, or mitigate 
their guilt. Their ignorance may have palliated their sin but 
the plan of God did not. Says Dr. Pepper, " The union of 
God's will and man's will is such that while in one view all can 
be ascribed to God, in another all can be ascribed to the 
creature. How God and the creature are united in operation 
is doubtless known and knowable only to God. Free beings 
are ruled but are ruled as free and in their freedom. The two 
co-exist, each in its integrity. Any doctrine which does not 
allow this is false to Scripture and destructive of religion." 
For practical purposes we may emphasize the function of the 
human. It is not irreverent to say that Paul must plant and 
Apollos must water if God is to give the increase. The plant- 
ing and the watering are, on their plane, as necessary to the 
harvest as is the original creation of the life in the seed. The 
purpose of God embraces the volition of the man. 

Three attitudes are possible in relation to that purpose. The 
creature may antagonize it, as the sailors unwittingly did when, 
under cover of casting out anchors, they would have slipped 
away to land, leaving the rest to go down with the ship. Man 
may stop short of the purpose of God, as the captain and cen- 
turion doubtless did. The aim of the captain was simply to 
reach port in safety and unload his ship. The controlling pur- 
pose of the centurion was to deliver his distinguished prisoner 
to the prsetorian guard. Or, lastly, the plan of the creature 
may be coincident with the providence of God, as was Paul's. 
"After I have been to Jerusalem," he says, "I must also see 
Rome." In all his prayers for the Church he desired that it 
might be God's will that he should visit them. " I longed to 
see you that I might impart unto you some spiritual gift." " I 
purposed to come unto you but was hindered hitherto." "As 



312 PAUL SHIPWRECKED. [Third Quarter. 

much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that 
are at Rome also." " Whensoever I go unto Spain I will come 
to you." " I know that when I come I shall come in the ful- 
ness of the blessing of Christ." Paul's purpose was God's 
purpose. He wished to root the gospel deeper in the teeming 
capital of the empire. He would give impetus to the truth, and 
courage to the nascent church. And whether on land or sea, 
he was invulnerable till the hour of his reprieve should strike. 

The lesson which we have studied enforces many important 
and practical truths. It suggests the use and rewards of con- 
secrated gifts. It affirms the futility of every life which is in 
conflict with the divine will. It teaches that the largest free- 
dom for the soul is found within the bounds of the divine 
purpose. It magnifies that grace which is essential to the sal- 
vation of great and lowly alike. It reveals how God's purpose 
is sometimes accomplished by deliverance from trial and some- 
times by its patient endurance. 

To the true believer both deliverance and defeat are alike 
success. All things work together for good to them that love 
God and are called according to his purpose. The true Chris- 
tian will neither fear nor falter. The God of the Apostle is the 
God of the humblest soul that trusts him. Faith links the 
human to the divine, and assures the glorious destiny of the 
creature. God is " timing all things in the interests of Christ's 
kingdom." Only those who have shared in the conflict can 
hope to share in the triumph. 



lessor )(\. September 10. 



PAUL AT ROME. 

Acts xxviii: 20-31. 



By Rev. JOHN H. MASON, New Haven, Conn. 

AT last in Rome ! No wonder that Paul, striking for the 
great centres of life, should have been eagar to reach 
the imperial city. Years before at Ephesus he had 
said : " I must also see Rome." From Corinth he had written 
to the Roman Christians of his longing to be with them. 

Yonder it comes, a little band of Roman soldiers with a 
prisoner in the midst, on the far-famed Appian Way. The 
sight is not so uncommon as to attract much notice. What is 
it to Rome that another Jew has been seized and is being hur- 
ried on to his doom ? What if he die tomorrow — who cares ? 
The tide of life will still run as strong on the Appian Way ; the 
prisoner will be forgotten ; the lustre of Rome's glory will be 
undimmed. Rome, supreme and complacent, looks out over 
the whole world and says : It is mine. Her eyes are holden 
that she may not see in the prisoner coming through the city 
gate yonder the ambassador of a kingdom before whose splen- 
dor Rome's lights shall pale. 

Of the captive himself, what ? Is this then the realization of 
his dream, to be marched into Rome with a chain on his wrist, 
in the custody of a military guard ? But no man in that com- 
pany cares less for the chain than the prisoner who wears it. 
It cannot fetter his spirit. No earthly sovereign can destroy 



314 £AUL AT ROME. [Third Quarter. 

the freedom of a man who is always conscious of the Heavenly 
Presence. 

Our study is the study of a single character. We meet him 
as a prisoner, but the prisoner becomes a preacher and the 
preacher a prophet. 

/. Paul the prisoner. Captivity was to Paul nothing new. 
He had been " in chains oft." He had just come out of a long 
bondage at Csesarea. He was familiar with the wearisome 
delays of law, and he knew that an appeal to Caesar did not 
surely mean an immediate hearing. As a prisoner he enjoyed 
a certain degree of freedom. Yet it would not seem strange if 
an eager spirit like Paul's, burning with a desire for the world's 
evangelization, should have fretted and consumed itself within 
its narrow walls. But you find in him no sign of impatience 
and no trace of discouragement. He gives himself little time 
for rest after the rigors of the voyage and the perils of the ship- 
wreck. In three days he calls together the chief of the Jews, 
tells them why he is a prisoner, and why in Rome, and 
sums up the whole case in a word : " For the hope of Israel I 
am bound with this chain." It was a pregnant sentence, for it 
explained, first, his attitude before the Roman ; second, his 
attitude before the Jew ; third, his attitude toward Christ. 

We must note the unswerving faith of the prisoner. Doubt 
sometimes gets into the heart of the Christian. Environment 
will have its effect. And many, applying the inductive method 
to an oppressed and harassed life, conclude : No God ; or a 
God who is ignorant ; or a God who does not care. Others 
interpret obstruction as a providential closing of a chosen way, 
and turn aside to easier paths. But with Paul doubt had no 
chance. He knew that he was an apostle not of men neither 
by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. No one 
could convince him that he was not called to preach the gospel 
of the Crucified. And in all the events of his life, however 
mysterious, he saw the moving of a divine hand. Had Rome 



Lesson XI.] PAUL AT ROME. 315 

shut him in a dungeon with only a single ray of light to pierce 
the darkness, Paul would have climbed to God by the sun- 
beam, as saintly George Herbert phrases it. Had the sunbeam 
itself been shut off, Paul, in utter darkness, would still have 
felt a " presence that disturbed him with the joy of elevated 
thoughts." There was no change in Paul after the time of his 
conversion except the deepening of the conviction, if that were 
possible, that men's previous attempts after righteousness were 
failures and that the lost world's only hope was Christ crucified. 

For Paul the prisoner, then, there was no fainting, no failure 
of faith, no shifting of his convictions, no trimming of his mes- 
sage. The influential Jews whom he so quickly called together, 
themselves not Christians, meeting to learn what this stranger 
wanted, were likely at any minute to have the cross of Christ 
thrust right up before them. "For the hope of Israel I am 
bound with this chain." That hope, as Paul saw it, was the 
living and dying Jesus. 

There was another chain which bound Paul. It was the in- 
visible chain of love which linked him to his Lord. The chain 
on his wrist was a symbol of captivity. The chain on his heart 
was a token of freedom. 

A second meeting of the Jews was appointed ; and this 
brings us directly to the study of 

77. The prisoner as a preacher. Doubtless his preaching 
began with the first guard to whom he was bound. But his 
public preaching seems to have begun with this appointed 
meeting. The substance of his message is compressed into 
the twenty-third verse, though we need to put with this the last 
two verses of the lesson. 

The kingdom of God, that was his theme. He preached 
it, we may be sure, with all the energy of his soul. They were 
not abstract ideas hard to be grasped, which he put before them, 
but truths vitalized with the life of the incarnate God. " He 
expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them 



316 PAUL AT ROME. [third Quarter. 

concerning Jesus." Jesus was the Word in whom they should 
read of God's eternal justice and of his infinite love. Jesus 
was the Way through which they should find the Father. 

This kingdom of God was no new invention. Its founda- 
tions had been laid long before the birth of the Babe. He 
had come to reveal to men the nature of God and the eternal 
principles on which the kingdom should be builded. It was 
Paul's high mission to connect old systems with new. Rather 
it was his mission to breathe the breath of life into the corpse 
which the Jews were so carefully preserving. So he goes back to 
Moses and the prophets. There in law and prophecy and sacri- 
fice and type and symbol, he showed them many a finger point- 
ing to Calvary. No time seems to have been spent on specu- 
lative questions or dogmatic controversies. It was a living 
gospel for living men with which Paul's soul was aflame. The 
cross of Christ needed no guy-ropes to steady it. And so pro- 
foundly convinced was he of the impotence of every other 
message and of the despair which every other message should 
bring to the soul, that he once with sublime audacity called 
down the curse of heaven even on an angel who should try to 
substitute any other for the one which he knew was from 
heaven. 

His theme was the sublimest which ever gained possession 
of the mind of man, but it was by no means easy to overcome 
the prejudices which had been growing and strengthening for 
generations. From morning until evening the work went on. 
Here was the preacher, right in the heart of the Roman capi- 
tal, the centre of earthly power. But the resplendent name of 
Rome wrought no spell on Paul. His thought was busy with 
the splendor of a kingdom which should be universe-wide and 
eternity-long. He cared not for the throne of the Caesars, 
which by and by should topple and fall like an iceberg drifted 
into summer seas, because his eye was fixed on a throne which 
was built upon eternal principles and which could not be touched 



Lesson XI.] PAUL AT ROME. 3 1 7 

by any attrition of time. He was anxious above all to lead 
these men willing captives in the train of the Heavenly King. 

Had some of the Roman philosophers strolled in with the 
rest, the message would have been the same. Seneca was then 
living in Rome. In the humble room which supplied a forum 
for the Christian, Seneca might have learned far more of 
Providence and of consolation and of constancy and of happi- 
ness than he has given us in his famous works. 

When the sermon was done some had accepted the truth, 
but not all. There was division and strife of tongues. For 
some, prejudice had bribed reason at the start. For some, 
selfishness unconquerable had stifled all suggestion of a living 
sacrifice. These deluded men were at war with one another, 
at war with themselves, at war with God. 

It is an hour of destiny. The company breaks up and many 
depart in anger. But Paul will not let them go without one 
final word. To some of his hearers it will be the last which he 
can ever speak. He would be likely to follow them to the 
door. There he stands, the man prematurely old, with the 
ever-present guard by his side, and probably lifting his man- 
acled hand as he had lifted it on the stairs at Jerusalem, he 
flings after them that sad testimony : " Well spake the Holy 
Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto 
this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear and shall not under- 
stand ; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive, for the heart 
of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, 
and their eyes have they closed ; lest they should see with 
their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their 
heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be 
it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent 
unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." 

It was a sentence which would follow them and ring in their 
ears and prick and rankle in their consciences. It was the 
scripture of their own revered prophet ; it was God's word 



318 PAUL AT ROME. [Third Quarter. 

spoken through him. It was God's prediction of precisely 
this scene. So they went out of Paul's presence warned that 
the guilt could not be thrust away from themselves if they 
would finally resist God's message. Their own hearts they had 
hardened ; their own eyes they had closed. Thus departing 
they naturally had great reasoning among themselves. The 
sequel is know only to God. 

III. The prisoner as a prophet. Prophecy in its narrower 
range is foretelling : in its wider range it is teaching. To look 
clearly and deeply into the great principles of truth and duty 
and to set these principles forth with authority before men is 
the largest function of the prophet. Hence the true prophet 
and the true preacher are not far apart. Just as the curtain 
falls on the last dramatic scene, we hear Paul's voice, predict- 
ing the triumphant advance of the gospel among the Gentiles. 
Let this serve simply as our introduction to the prisoner's 
wider work as a prophet of the Most High. 

To preach Jesus was a high privilege to Paul in prison. But 
he was granted a privilege infinitely higher than that. Paul 
thanked God for his chains. Many of his hearers thanked God 
for his chains. And we of to-day are blind and dumb and our 
heart is waxed gross if we do not thank God for the chains of 
Paul. Some of the sublimest truths of revelation are ours 
because the chains were his. Here was the mysterious Provi- 
dence through which God worked out the fulfilment of his 
plan for a completed Revelation. Four of the immortal 
epistles of Paul were written at just this time. Read again that 
Epistle to the Philippians, which leaps and throbs with the 
spirit of joy, and see how unfettered was the soul of the man 
who wrote it. There we see Christ the life, the pattern, the 
inspiration, the strength of the believer. " Think not that you 
have already found the measure of salvation ; the prizes of life 
are ahead of you." Such was the message. 

Here, too, were written the letter to the Colossians and the 



Lesson XI.] PAUL AT ROME. 319 

letter to the Ephesians, the one telling us of Christ's universal 
reign, the other of the Church universal in Christ. In the one 
we see the Church exalted as the bride, yea as the body of 
Christ ; in the other we see Christ the head of the body ; 
while in both we see the final shining consummation of a life 
that is hid with Christ in God. Dead in sin ; alive in Christ. 
Slaves to sin ; redeemed through the precious blood. Con- 
demned by the law ; saved by grace. This is the burden of 
the double song. In a single chapter, we find such profound 
and such lofty truth as this : election ; redemption ; inheritance ; 
the Spirit as seal and as pledge ; the call of God ; the body of 
Christ. Gleaming through these truths are the sovereignty of 
God ; the love of God ; the power of God ; our forgiveness ; 
our acceptance ; our adoption ; our union with Christ ; our 
resurrection in him ; our reign with him. These great truths 
which pitch their shining tents outside our walls are dimly seen 
in this grey dawn, but they will be manifest when the light 
widens into perfect day. 

Then the brief letter to Philemon, " the magna charta of 
emancipation," as it has been called, must be added to the 
rest. Think of the prisoner of Rome dealing in such truth as 
this, betraying such mental and moral power ! The whole fibre 
of his intellectual and moral nature was being subdued to what 
it worked in like the dyer's hand. 

What a debt the Church of every age will owe to Paul's 
chains, for we can easily believe that but for them that fiery 
spirit would never in these swift late years of life have taken time 
for solitude and meditation, without which these truths could 
never have become a part of his life or of our Bible. We may 
go farther still and say that these truths could never have had 
for us the living force which they possess to-day, had they not 
with all their transcendent, vivifying power been first thrust into 
a human life which was oppressed and beaten and battered and 
tortured by the fierce rage of man. In a crucible like that, 



320 PAUL AT ROME. [Third Quarter. 

the divine truth was stirred and made ready for humanity's 
need. 

Not only the Church but the world owes to Paul's chains a debt 
which it cannot measure and which it certainly never will pay ; 
for the revolutions and the reformations of the centuries, many 
of them, have been set in motion by the fettered hand of Paul. 

For two years Paul remained in Rome, a prisoner, a preacher, 
a prophet. He preached the kingdom of God ; he taught 
"those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ." We do 
not wonder that he preached with all confidence. We are glad 
that no man forbade him. Yet though a prisoner in Rome, 
surrounded by the symbols and trophies of Rome's power, his 
citizenship was in heaven. He always felt 

"a larger life 
Upon his own impinging." 

The things which are seen are temporal and shadowy. He 
lived in the midst of realities unseen but eternal. 

We have been busy with the last paragraph of church his- 
tory as penned by the Holy Spirit. And this is the closing 
scene : the man who beyond all others was once persecuting 
Christ's followers to the death, is preaching Christ crucified, 
man's only hope of life. From Damascus to Rome, how far, 
how far ! 

By and by came Paul's release and after that another impris- 
onment. At length we know that he was led out to his death 
by command of the inhuman monster who sat upon the world's 
throne. But how swift the reverses of history. In a few 
months more, Nero was a terror-stricken fugitive. He would 
have been a suicide had he not been so base a coward, and he 
died detested by the world. 

Nero and Paul ! In this world, while they were alive, Nero 
wore the crown and Paul the chain. Whose is the crown now ; 
in either world ? 



lessen? /ll. S e P tem t >er , 7- 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

Romans xiv: 12-23. 

By Rkv. T; D. ANDERSON, Providence* R. L 

IN the early part of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle 
expounds the fundamental doctrines of the christian religion. 
In this latter part he applies these doctrines to the problems 
and duties of daily life. In the Roman church he is confronted* 
as ministers of the gospel are confronted even to the present 
day, with two opposite and antagonistic parties, the legal and 
the spiritual, the conservative and the liberal, or, as he terms 
them, the weak and the strong. Some, with large conceptions 
of the truth, have correspondingly broad conceptions of con- 
duct. Others, with restricted conceptions of truth, are corres- 
pondingly narrow in their views of conduct. 

How to reconcile these two parties in the one christian 
church, is the problem which engages the attention of him who 
has the care of all the churches. With the breadth of view 
which always characterized him, Paul recognizes that the right 
is not altogether with either party. He has a word of approval 
for each, and a word of admonition for both. A recognition 
of the Lord's authority, a desire to execute the Lord's purpose, 
and a confession of the Lord's goodness, characterize both 
parties. But while there is good on both sides, there are on 
both sides manifestations of evil. A spirit of uncharitableness 

21 



322 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. [Third Quarter. 

is seen in the judgments of both, and to this the Apostle 
directs his teaching as he urges the exhortation, " Let us not 
therefore judge one another any more." 

The first argument against this habit of uncharitable criticism 
is found in the truth that judgment belongs unto God, man 
being incompetent to render it. "Why dost thou judge thy 
brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of 
God." The Omniscient alone is competent to judge ; we can- 
not, because of inadequate knowledge. 

We have not sufficient knowledge of the mind of the Master 
to determine the standard of action. " Who hath known the 
mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?" "We 
know but in part." Even inspired apostles " prophesy but in 
part." "We see in a glass darkly," not yet "face to face." 
My conception is my working standard. It is the Master's com- 
mission to me. His word to my brother may be different. To 
me the Master says " Go," and I go ; but how can I deny the 
truth of my brother's statement : " the Master says Come, and 
I come." We may move in opposite directions and yet both 
fulfil the purpose of one controlling mind. Let me be assured 
that my feet are planted on the truth, but let me beware how I 
deny that my brother stands upon the truth because he does 
not occupy the same square-foot of ground on which I stand. 
No man has a monopoly of truth. Other truth there is, 
which is not of my system. It is only "with all the saints" 
that " we comprehend the breadth and the length, the height 
and the depth." My apprehension is partial, my judgment, 
therefore, liable to err; only he who knoweth all things can 
render judgment according to truth. 

Again, we are incompetent to judge because we have not 
sufficient knowledge of the mind of the fellow- servant to deter- 
mine the motive with which his action is performed. " Let 
not him that eateth not judge him that eateth ; for the Lord 
hath received him." Oft-times man can look no farther than 



Lesson XII.] PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. $2$ 

the outward appearance. God looketh upon the heart. He 
weighs the motive. He regards the virtue of the character as 
well as the Tightness of the conduct. Only " the judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

Yet, spite of their incompetence, how free men are to usurp 
this divine prerogative of judgment ! Without God's knowl- 
edge, without God's love, they are quick to condemn. The 
strong are ready to express their contempt for the weak. The 
weak are all too ready to vituperate the strong. Would that 
zealous reformers in the christian church would oftener heed 
the exhortation of the Apostle, being less zealous in judging 
others and more zealous in judging themselves ! Before the bar 
of God each is responsible for himself alone. 

In this solemn fact the Apostle finds his second argument 
against the habit of judging others. " Each one of us shall 
give account of himself to God ; let us not, therefore, judge 
one another any more." The relation in which a Christian 
should stand to his brother, must be determined in view of 
what God will demand of him at the last grand assize. God 
does not hold us responsible for our brother's action ; but he 
does hold us responsible for our influence upon him. We are 
incompetent to judge, but we are under obligation to serve. 
" Judge ye this, rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in 
his brother's way." 

The large demands of the divine Judge upon the Christian, 
and upon the Christian in relation to his brethren, the Apostle 
now urges especially upon the strong. There is reason in mak- 
ing the application especially to the strong, for in the matters 
under discussion they alone have freedom of choice. The 
strong Christian may eat or forbear eating. He may observe 
the day or not observe the day. The weak, however, in his 
present moral condition, has no choice. He must not eat, he 
must observe the day. To those who have the larger oppor- 
tunity, the truth is the more broadly applied. 



324 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. f^HiRD Quarter* 

But we are not obliged to think that the entire doctrine of the 
relation of the strong to the weak is set forth in this chapter. 
Were that the case it might seem as if Paul exalted the weak man's 
conscience to a place of tyranny. This surely is not his teaching. 

Truth is supreme. Opinion can never usurp her throne. If 
the weak brother's opinion is not the truth, his position is open 
to attack, and in the fuller presentation of the truth it may be 
necessary to oppose it. Paul himself was • constantly leading 
in such opposition. He was the great champion of the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made us free. Even in the passage before 
us he does not hesitate to give his endorsement to the view of 
the strong. " I know," he says, and then tracing his knowledge 
to a christian source, he continues, " I am persuaded in the 
Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself." 

Not only may the position of the weak brother be attacked ; 
there are times when his scruples have to be disregarded. 
They may always be disregarded by you when they are opposed 
to a clear conviction of your duty. " Let each man be fully 
persuaded in his own mind," and he need not, he must not 
desist out of regard for another's conscience. If he is acting 
counter to the consciences of others, he may, yes, ought to 
consider well whether his own conception of truth or duty is 
correct. But if, after sufficient and candid study, he is fully 
assured that it is his duty to act, he must act, however his action 
may grieve his weaker brother. 

Even in matters which may be termed indifferent, the scru- 
ples of the weak brother may deserve to be set aside. Paul 
himself is our example. To him circumcision is nothing. At 
one time, on account of the Jews, he circumcises Timothy. At 
another time, when certain came to spy out the Christian's 
liberty and to bring him into bondage, he refuses to circumcise 
Titus. To these he " gave place in the way of subjection, no, 
not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue " 
with the christian disciples. 



Lesson XII.] PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 325 

There are, therefore, grounds on which the position of the 
weak brother may be attacked and his scruples disregarded. 
This we need to admit, in order to put the teaching of this 
passage in proper relation to other teachings of the Apostle, 
and to a general system of ethics. Nevertheless there are 
grounds on which the position of the weaker brother must be 
respected, and his scruples receive special regard. No man 
who is indifferent to the influence he exerts upon his brother 
will be able to give a satisfactory account of himself before 
God; for the great, enduring, ultimate law of the kingdom of 
God, the law with reference to which each shall be judged, is 
the law of love. " If because of meat thy brother is grieved, 
thouwalkest no longer according to love." 

My act is not right simply because it does not harm me. 
As a child of God I must look upon the things of others. 
Christianity is satisfied with no standard but that of love. In 
their endeavor to establish a standard of justice as distinct from 
that of love, men have brought confusion into their theology 
and into their ethics. In theology men have said God must 
be just, God may be merciful or loving. God must be just, 
surely ; but he must be loving also. God is just because his 
nature impels him to be just ; God is loving because his nature 
impels him to be loving. Certain christian teachers have 
alleged that God is under no obligation to redeem those 
already condemned for transgression of his law. Under no 
obligation? Does not God's nature oblige him to love? Is 
he simply an intellectual calculator who is satisfied when for a 
certain amount of virtue or vice there is meted out an arith- 
metical equivalent of reward and punishment? We do not so 
believe. Scripture does not so teach when it declares " God 
loved the world," when it says that " while we were yet sin- 
ners Christ died for the ungodly." God's own nature obliges 
him to exercise himself to the utmost for the best good of all 
" God is love," and the condition of his unfaltering justice js 
found in his comprehensive, unwearying love. 



326 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. [Third Quarter. 

If this is true christian doctrine, the application in christian 
ethics is clear. Justice is conformity to a standard ; the chris- 
tian standard of life is the loving nature of God. I cannot 
therefore be just in the christian sense unless I have love. 
Not what is good for me alone, nor what is good for my 
brother alone, but what is best for all, is to determine my 
action as a child of God. Only through its relation to the 
blessedness of all, can my action be determined as just or 
unjust ; as good or bad ; as, in the highest sense, right or 
wrong. Christ acknowledged this standard when he gave up 
his life for your weak brother. Have you made his standard 
yours when you are unwilling to give up your meat ? " Destroy 
not with thy meat, him for whom Christ died." 

But the Law of Love is not satisfied with the attainment of 
anything less than the best good of all. There are many 
goods. They are of divers values. Freedom in eating and 
drinking is a good, but this is not the highest good which 
Christianity has to bestow. " For the Kingdom of God is not 
eating and drinking ; but righteousness and peace and joy in 
the Holy Ghost." The man who, in his zeal to establish the 
right to eat and drink, or the right to the free observance of a 
religious day, cares not how much he disturbs the peace, 
diminishes the joy, and undermines the righteousness of his 
brethren, really places the minor above the major, the subor- 
dinate above the supreme. In seeking a good, he misses the 
best good of the Kingdom of God. " Overthrow not for meat's 
sake the work of God." 

But the strong may say in way of defense : Inasmuch as 
nothing is unclean of itself, may we not encourage others to 
imitate us in customs which are not opposed to any law of 
righteousness ? No, says the Apostle, not so long as the weak 
brother considers the thing unclean, or the act unrighteous. 
The end of Christianity is not right conduct, viewed apart from 
its motive, but virtuous character. Christianity has not attained 



Lesson XII.] PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 327 

its ideal when certain legal decrees have been obeyed, but 
only when certain moral experiences have been evoked. Its 
end is not formal obedience to the divine will, but rather par- 
ticipation in the divine nature. A merely legal system might 
be satisfied with formally correct conduct, but a vital religion 
demands a godly character. 

The teaching is sharp and decisive. ;; Whatsoever is not of 
faith is sin." Whatsoever is done without the consent of the 
moral nature, whatsoever is done contrary to what one believes 
to be right, is sin. This is striking doctrine. A man may be 
sinful when his action is formally right. Surely Christianity 
seeks something ulterior to outward conduct. But does not 
our best ethics confirm this view? Do we not frequently see 
the unhappy results of submission to precepts which may be 
right, and yet are in opposition to the beliefs of the heart ? 

In such submission the man surrenders his freedom, the 
birthright of moral manhood. He submits to the rule of his 
fellow-man. In opposition to the teaching of Christ, "Call no 
man master," he yields his sovereignty and lets others lay 
down the law of his life. This is paternalism in morals ; and 
if under our democratic education we believe that paternalism, 
however great may be its temporary advantages, is not the 
ideal in civil government, under our christian education we 
must certainly admit that paternalism in ethics is far more 
baneful than paternalism in civics. Whatsoever is not of faith 
is of foreign dictation. It is the act of the bondman, not of 
the freeman. 

By such conformity the man benumbs his sense of obligation. 
It is this sense which binds him to the eternal truth. It is like 
the cable which holds the buoy to its moorings. It may allow 
the man to drift in one direction and another, according to the 
blowing of the wind or the setting of the tide. The lower the 
tide of principle the greater will be the amplitude of the oscill- 
ation. But cut the cable and the man becomes an outcast, 



328 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. [Third Quarter. 

driven of the wind and tossed. The sense of obligation is the 
one assuring evidence that God has not forgotten us. This 
binds us to the eternal throne. Like the clue which Ariadne 
gave to Theseus, it leads through devious ways out into the 
world of light, of life and of love ; it leads to the throne, to the 
feet, to the heart of God. Lose this thread and the soul is 
left alone, "in wandering mazes lost." Cherish your own 
sense of obligation ; beware how you injure another's. It is 
the clue which binds each wandering child to the heart of the 
loving Father. 

More fundamentally still, the performance of an act which is 
contrary to the soul's belief, to which the consent of the moral 
nature is not given, is essentially a subordination of the impulse 
to live for others to the impulse to live for one's self. If con- 
science does not always and at once recognize that the end 
of life is the good of all, it usually recognizes, however obscurely, 
that the end of life is not found in one's self alone. But when 
a man casts aside these larger conceptions, and performs an 
action simply for prudential reasons, simply because the results 
of such action seem to be advantageous, even though that 
action may be right in itself, he has found his end only in his 
own good. He has restricted the scope of his life ; he has 
sinned against his own soul. 

The teachings of this chapter become intelligible in propor- 
tion as we come to understand the end which Christianity 
seeks to attain. Christianity aims not simply to cause our 
actions to conform to a certain legal standard ; but rather to 
make us partake of the nature and thus of the blessed experi- 
ences of the ever-blessed God. All conduct finds its end in 
character. Character is the supreme good, the good supremely 
worthy to be sought. The end to be sought by all Christians, 
is that we may "all attain unto a full-grown man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, who is the 
effulgence of the Father's glory, the very image of his sutjr 



Wesson XII.] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 



329 



stance." For the attainment of this blessedness motive is 
essential as well as action. Our blessedness will be complete, 
not simply when our acts are the acts of God ; but only when 
our experiences are the experiences of God. " God is love, 
and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth 
in him. Love, therefore, is the fulfilment of the law." 



THE FOURTH QUARTER. 



STUDIES IN THE EPISTEES. 



L,ESSON 

I. October i. ''The Power of the Gospel. "—Rom. i 18-17. 
Rev. James T. Dickinson. 

II. " 8. "Redemption in Christ." — Rom. iii: 19-26. 

The Editor. 

III. " 15. "Justification by Faith." — Rom. v: 1-11. 

Rev. George B. Gow, D. d. 

IV. " 22. "Christian Living." — Rom.xii: 1-15. Rev. 

Wm. M. Lawrence, D. D. 

V. 29. "Abstinence for the Sake of Others." — 1 

Cor. viii: 1-13. Rev. Professor R. S. 
CoirfWEU,, D. D. 

VI. November 5. "The Resurrection." — 1 Cor. xv: 12-26. 

Rev. Chari.es a. Reese. 

VII. " 12. "The Grace of Liberality."— 2 Cor. viii: 

1-12. Rev. CivARK M. Brink. 

VIII. " 19. "Imitation of Christ."— Eph. iv: 20-32. 

Rev. C. R. Henderson, D. D. 

IX. " 26. "The Christian Home."— Col. iii: 12-25. 

Rev. C. C. Brown. 

X. December 3. " Grateful Obedience." — Jas. i: 16-27. REV. 
President B. L. Whitman. 

XI. " 10. "The Heavenly Inheritance." — 1 Pet. i: 

1-12. Rev. Professor Wm.N. Clarke, 
D. D. 

XII. " 17. "The Glorified Saviour. "—Rev. i: 9-20. 

Rev. J. V. Garton. 

XIII. " 24. "The Great Invitation."— Rev. xxii: 8-21. 

Rev. Prescott F. Jernegan. 

XIII. " 24. "The Birth of Jesus."— Matt. ii:i-i 1. REV. 

H, W. PlNKHAM. 



(essoQ i. October I. 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 

Romans i: 8-iy. 
By Rev. JAMES T. DICKINSON, Orange, N. J. 

THE greatest man of history, writing the earliest permanent 
document of the greatest religion of history, the same 
constituting the greatest letter of history, to a little com- 
pany in the greatest city of history — this is the remarkable 
conjunction of circumstances presented in the Epistle to the 
Romans. Who can estimate the influence of this letter over 
human hearts, minds, and lives ? The great systems of theology 
are built on it, the mightiest reforms and revivals of history 
have sprung from the spiritual study of it, the most influential 
christian characters of history have nourished their souls on it. 
Yonder shrinking disciple, painfully walking thorny paths, 
cries, " Let me, living or dying, sustain my heart upon this 
uplifting book of God." 

Godet calls the Epistle to the Romans " the cathedral of the 
christian faith." Coleridge declared it " the profoundest book 
in existence." Rufus Choate was in the habit of reading it as 
a mental stimulus before going into any great legal controversy. 
Chrysostom is said to have read it twice every week. Power is 
the characteristic of the Epistle, power to find, convince, melt, 
lift, transfigure. 

The letter has power, not simply or chiefly because written 



334 T ** E POWER OF THE GOSPEL. [Fourth Quarter. 

by a man of power, but because it unfolds a gospel of power. 
Very completely is the character of the Epistle brought out in 
verses sixteen and seventeen : "lam not ashamed of the gos- 
pel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto salvation to 
everyone that believeth ; to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to 
faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith." All that 
follows in the Epistle is simply an expansion of these two 
verses. But these verses look both backward and forward, and 
we may find an exposition and emphasis of them in our lesson 
for to-day. The power of the Gospel — evidences and sources 
of that power as given in the opening verses of Romans — let 
this be the subject to engage our thoughts in the present study. 

The power of the gospel is seen in Paul's unconscious revela- 
tion of his own heart in these opening salutations. He refers 
to himself as a slave, a bond- servant of Jesus. What more 
touching or remarkable than such an expression from such a 
man as the great Apostle ? This Jew who gloried in his blue 
Hebrew blood, this scholar whose memory was stored with the 
rich spoils of learning, whose brain heaved with titanic thoughts, 
this master of men, before the magic of whose eloquence great 
assemblies bow, deliberately calls himself the bond-servant of 
the despised and crucified Jesus. A chain is about his feet, a 
golden chain of love, and a yoke upon his shoulders, the yoke 
fashioned and imposed by the Carpenter's Son. What humility ! 

But Paul shows himself to be more than humble, more even 
than a slave. Read again the opening verses of the chapter, 
lingering especially over the eighth. What exultant gladness, 
spontaneous thanksgiving, overflowing ecstasy ! Paul is a 
Christ-intoxicated man. His slavery is heaven to him. His 
fetters he kisses for very love of them. His yoke is light, 
bringing him joy instead of heaviness. His cross is a pair of 
wings, strong and swift, to bear him over moor, fen, crag, tor- 
rent, and every other obstacle. Seven times in the first eight 



Lesson I.] THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 335 

verses he speaks of Christ. The Epistle is in every line redo- 
lent with the Apostle's love for his Lord. 

We cannot but notice another proof of the change wrought 
in the Apostle by the gospel, in the tone of his utterances to 
the Roman Christians. He is ready to preach the gospel to 
them. He even longs to do this ; while with ardent and cour- 
teous yet delicate language he intimates that they may help him 
as truly as he can help them. He who had gloried in his 
Jewish caste and thought of other nations as hardly deserving 
God's notice, is now freely drawn by an overmastering love to 
minister to men of alien blood, whom he has never seen. He 
who recently gloried in culture now joys in servitude ; he who 
was zealous unto death against Christ now enthrones Christ in 
his heart ; he who was proud, fierce, and reckless of others' 
feelings, is now become the most unselfish man that ever lived . 
The bitter waters are made sweet ; the thornbush smiles with 
flowers. 

The power of the gospel is manifested in the fact that there 
were Christians " in Rome, beloved by God, called to be saints." 
Accounts of the indescribable immorality of Rome, then the 
mistress of the world, are only too familiar. The city was the 
receptacle of nameless iniquities from all the quarters of the 
earth. So terrible were Roman morals and customs that Paul 
can only hint at them as works of darkness of which it is a 
shame to speak. Nearly half the inhabitants of the city were 
wretched slaves. Gross heathen rites, contemptuous infidelity, 
wild lust, unbridled cruelty, degraded womanhood, brutalized 
manhood — these filled alike the georgeous palaces and the 
miserable hovels of Rome with gloom and death. 

' 'In that hard Pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell ; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell. 



336 THE POWER OP THE GOSPEL. [Fourth Quarter. 

"In his cool hall, with haggard lips, 
The Roman noble lay ; 
He drove abroad in furious guise 
Along the Appian way. 

1 ' He made a feast $ drank fast and fierce* 
And crowned his hair with flowers ; 
No easier nor no quicker passed 
The impracticable hours." 

Yet in this Rome the gospel had reached hearts, converted 
lives, established a church. Through pride of intellect, wealth, 
fashion, and sin and shame of all sorts, the gospel had made its 
way, until perhaps already there were saints in Caesar's house- 
hold. Christianity came to Rome to stay, and in course of 
time this city, which had been the capital of the devil's king- 
dom, became the chief city of the faith. 

Passing from these signs and manifestations of the gospel's 
power to study the causes thereof, we have logically before us 
the entire question of the superiority of the christian religion 
over other religions. Had we space to present so extensive a 
subject, we should need to treat, first, the distinctively christian 
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. We should find the golden 
core of this in that other distinctively christian doctrine, of 
love as the essence of all moral goodness. Study of this grand 
principle would lead us to see how love works the incarnation, 
re-creates individual character, and also how, operating con- 
structively, it perfects society, first locally, then on and on till 
all humanity is redeemed. We should see the decisive func- 
tion of faith in accomplishing all this. So much ground would 
full discussion of the power of the gospel involve ; so much of 
course we cannot here traverse, yet the Apostle's thought, even in 
this lesson, takes us to a few mountain heights whence we can 
see the entire continent thus outlined. 

In announcing his bond-servantship to all nations, so hint- 
ing at the brotherhood of men, Paul gives us flower instead of 



Lesson I.] THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 337 

seed; yet flower whose seed is here and in other Scripture 
made perfectly obvious. The seed is love. The gospel is 
the expression of the divine love. Love is the mightiest prin- 
ciple in heaven or on earth. Who can begin to describe its 
breadth, length, depth, or height, as displayed even in human 
relations like a mother's long-suffering, a patriot's devotion, a 
saint's zeal ! 

' ' The solid, solid universe 
Is pervious to love; 
With bandaged eyes he never errs. 

Around, below, above, 
His blinding light he flingeth white, 
On God's and Satan's brood, 
And reconciles 
With mystic wiles 
The evil and the good." 

But the gospel is the utterance of God's love, of the divine 
Fatherhood and Motherhood. It is the reaching out of God 
after his children. It is God's most characteristic expression 
of feeling towards man. 

Christ was and is pre-eminently the Word of God, the revela- 
tion of the divine heart. Hence the gospel's irresistible influence. 
As every element of the natural world, planet, continent, moun- 
tain, as well as the fleece of thistle blown by the wind, or the 
germ too small for the microscope, is under the law of gravity, 
so are all moral beings, the subjects of God's love, under a sort 
of divine gravitation. Heathen religions represent man seek- 
ing God. This quest is seen in ancestor-worship, bloody sac- 
rifices, all idol cults and barbaric rites, and also in Vedic hymns 
and Socratic questionings. All tell of man's groping, feeling, 
crying for God. This is the best that heathen religions can 
tell us, the fact of man's search after God, his despairing calls, 
his trembling hands uplifted in doubt, his anxious questionings 
and fears. Boundless, blessed difference, the gospel assures us 

22 



338 THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. [Fourth Quarter. 

of God's search after man. It speaks not so much of man's 
hand out-reached for God as of God's hand clasping man. 
" Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you." 

From this unselfish love which God had and has toward the 
world, and bids us to have toward the world, sprang that splen- 
did Christian product, the recognition of the universal brother- 
hood of man with its accompanying assurance of human inter- 
dependence and obligation. Paul says, "lama debtor both 
to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the 
unwise. ... I am ready to preach the gospel to you that 
are at Rome." Epoch-making words are these. Jews, Greeks, 
Romans, Barbarians had during all the past been completely 
separated from each other by nationality, caste, pride, and 
vengeful hate. To each of these all other peoples were simply 
outcasts, a rabble, fit subjects for plunder, bloodshed, and 
extermination. With Christ comes the marvellous declaration 
that all men are interdependent, linked together by a chain of 
brotherhood, of mutual indebtedness and love. 

Wherein was Paul indebted to Greek, Roman, Hebrew, 
Barbarian? He no doubt felt a certain tenderness toward 
them in that all of them had helped to prepare the world 
for Christ and for the rapid extension of his kingdom. All 
these nations, either explicitly or in the way of hopes, yearn- 
ings and aspirations, were looking for some great deliverer who 
was to come. The gospel of Christ fulfilled these hopes. 
Letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew were written over the 
head of the Son of Mary as on the cross of Calvary he bore the 
sin of the world. Greeks and Romans could not, as the 
Hebrew nation did, give the world a Christ; yet they helped 
prepare the world for its Christ, in whom their noblest long- 
ings wonderfully converged. The gospel could find a starting 
place in every nation, with the Jews in their prophecies and 
their intense desire after God, with the Barbarians in their 
religions of nature, with the Greeks in their sense of beauty, 



Lesson I.] THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 339 

with the Romans in their devotion to law, order and system. 
Wherever the gospel goes it recognizes and rescues whatever is 
good in individual or nation, and from that leads souls on and 
up to the divine redemption of which that good is a dim 
shadow and prophecy. 

But, more particularly, the Apostle's debt was a debt of the 
strong to the weak. The gospel has brought into life a new 
love, a new thought of responsibility, a spirit of condescension 
on the part of the strong to lift up the weak, a glad suffering of 
the holy and true to save the vile and false and shameful. 
That is the meaning of the incarnation, from the Bethlehem 
manger to Calvary with its cross and to the empty angel- 
watched sepulchre. This sacrificial love gives a lively sense 
of responsibility for the lost, and of indebtedness to all who are 
in need. Herein consists a mighty element of the gospel's 
power. Wherever there is one lost sheep, one broken life, one 
pain-tortured body, one fear-smitten heart, one waif of humanity 
surge-driven or storm-tossed, thither the gospel hastens with 
hope and healing. Into dungeons where prisoners languish, 
across Africa's sands and Siberia's snows, in the wake of red- 
mouthed battle, among the lepers of yonder island of the sea — 
goes the gospel, its bearers urged on by the same love that 
brought the Son of God from heaven to earth, which makes 
strength feel for weakness the debt of a divine, unfathom- 
able love. 

Our lesson lays great stress on the efficiency of the gospel. 
It is a power of God unto salvation. It consists in no mere 
sentiment but is a living, active and mighty force making all 
things new. The love through which it works is a radical and 
exclusive principle. Once truly lodged in a heart, it asserts 
itself more and more, till every influence or propensity opposed 
to it there is forever put down. How it changed Paul we 
have already seen, but Paul's case was in no sense unique. To 
tame rebellious hearts, to sweeten lives, to put self-denial in 



34° THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. [Fourth Quarter. 

the place of greed — the gospel has been doing this ever since 
it was first revealed, and is doing it on a perfectly gigantic 
scale to-day. So great is its effectiveness that men have nearly 
ceased regarding it as a phenomenon, inexplicable save as a 
divine energy. They fancy that human nature has improved, 
and that this is the reason why men's ancient savagery has so 
largely disappeared. A glance at heathen nations shows that 
human nature has grown better only so far as divine nature 
has entered into it. 

And this is precisely what is taking place. It is the very 
righteousness of God which men acquire by believing in 
Christ. " A righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to 
faith." Our character is to be — and will be if we are truly 
joined to Christ — just like God's and Christ's, of a piece with 
theirs, so that we too, like the blessed Son of Man, shall be holy, 
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. God's image is 
restored in every believer so that he becomes a Christ-like man. 
Let us mark it well : the gospel, if it really takes possession 
of us, delivers from the power of sin as well as from the guilt 
and remorse of sin. It makes us veritably new men in Christ. 
It is much more concerned to bring heaven into the believer 
than to bring the believer into heaven hereafter. To expect 
heaven by merely professing religion, without character, solid, 
strong, godly, proof against Satan's wiles, is the most fatal of 
heresy. Not he who saith to Jesus, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
the kingdom ; but he who doeth the will of his Father. This 
is a serious test but it is the Master's own, and woe to him, be 
he priest or layman, who presumes to alter it. 

But it is not the whole mission of the gospel to perfect indi- 
viduals : the gospel is to perfect society as well. The two 
things are not the same. You are not sure of a model com' 
munity when every citizen is a saint. A number of coeno- 
bites, monks, living each for himself though in the holiest 
way, would be no society, still less a christian society. Too 



Lesson L] THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 34 1 

much of the holy living of generations past has been cursed by 
such individualism. Thank God, we see the error now, and 
the social requirements of Christianity assert themselves more 
and more. What but the cross is to heal the social ailments of 
our time, the ill will of rich to poor and of poor to rich, the 
robberies perpetrated through law, the evils of our politics, 
the waste of wealth and of opportunity, of all which believers are 
almost as guilty as world's people ? Thank God, the gospel 
will prove adequate to this task too. Otherwise it would not 
be in the full sense a power of God unto salvation. Society 
must be saved. Earth has no business to be a hell. There is 
to be — and it is now going on — an intensive as well as an 
extensive coming of God's kingdom. It will "spread from 
shore to shore," and it will more and more righten and 
chasten the relations of men to one another on every shore 
whither its saving health shall come. 

With such a God's power as the gospel here, great hope 
have we for the world's future. This old earth, so dear to our 
hearts, theatre of so tremendous a procession of human joys 
and sorrows, and bearing the dust of so many departed saints 
— what is its destiny? We cannot doubt. The end shall be 
glorious. Look adown the ages and behold the gleaming walls 
of the city of God ! Listen : a voice comes out of the far 
past : " He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be 
satisfied." Listen again : another voice is borne from the 
distant future : " Death and hell are cast into the lake of 
fire. . . . The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
dwell with them, and they shall be his people and God himself 
shall be their God." 



lessor? II. October 8. 



REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. 
Romans Hi: 19-26. 

By the EDITOR. 

THIS is among the most important passages in the Bible. 
It is the classical proof-text for the doctrine of justifica- 
tion, or becoming righteous, through faith in Christ, cease- 
lessly appealed to by all the reformers and by every defender of 
Evangelical Christianity. Its very familiarity makes a correct 
understanding of it difficult. In most minds nearly every word 
of the passage has acquired a more or less defective meaning 
and become stereotyped therein. In examining this weighty 
utterance we must therefore exert ourselves to avoid prejudice 
and preconception, and to approach it as if for the first time. 

Perhaps the chief misconception touching this portion of the 
New Testament connects itself with the words "justification" 
and "justify," very poor but it may be inevitable translations of 
much nobler Greek expressions. " Justification " is a lawyer's 
term, brought into religious or rather theological speech from 
the Roman law, and it imparts to the whole section a false air 
of legalism. The reader imagines himself in a court-room, 
where God sits as judge. The sinner, the prisoner at the bar, 
easily proved guilty, is about to receive the deserved penalty, 
when suddenly Jesus appears as a substitute, and the real cul- 
prit is "justified" and sent scot free from the court. This is 
nothing less than a travesty of Paul's conception. He has none, 



tESSON II.] REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. 343 

or but the slightest, thought of court-room processes. His 
meaning is moral and spiritual through and through. Not how 
we may escape deserved penalty is his theme, but how we may 
escape sin and so cease to deserve penalty ; not how we may 
improve our technical status more or less regardless of intrinsic 
guilt, but how we may radically, permanently and forever 
change our character from depravity and vice to holiness. 

The teachings of the passage may be briefly summed up as 
follows : 

I. All men, Jews as well as Gentiles, are sinners and hence 
under the just condemnation of God's law. 

II. The Jewish law furnishes no means or appliances able to 
remove this guilt and restore men to God's favor. 

III. The gospel offers such means, ample, adequate, satis- 
factory ; presenting and proclaiming a plan for the forgiveness 
of sins and for a renewal of men's hearts through faith, whereby 
they may obey and enjoy God and possess everlasting life. 

IV. The atonement of Christ, through which all this becomes 
possible, also explains the lenient dealings of a righteous God 
with all past generations of sinners. 

I. All men are sinners and righteously condemned. The 
Jews admitted the hopeless guilt of the Gentiles, but accounted 
themselves righteous, or at least readily capable of becoming 
so. The Apostle declares that Jew and Gentile are both alike 
in this respect. There is no distinction. Every mouth is 
stopped, all alike are brought under the judgment of God, 
condemned and bound over to certain penalty. 

The Apostle comes thus in conflict with his old co-religion- 
ists because his Christianity has led him to a deeper view of 
moral character and obligation than they entertained. With 
them righteousness consisted in ordinances, the fulfilment of 
rules, the performance of rites. Their habitual thought of it 
made it an external affair. Thoroughness, heartiness, inward- 
ness in morality — conceptions which sometimes entered their 



344 REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. t Fourth Quarter. 

minds — they construed merely as the intense zeal which would 
lead one to omit no prescription, however slight, which the 
code laid down. 

Infinitely deeper and truer is the christian idea of moral 
goodness. It makes everything turn on man's state of heart, 
nothing upon isolated ordinances. By it, love is the fulfilment 
of the law, — the only possible fulfilment, the only necessary ful- 
filment. And seeing how desperately deficient the Jews were 
in this sovereign requirement, Paul scruples not to place them 
on the very same level with those who had never known the old 
law. They were in some respects, he assures us, even worse. 
Their view of the divine requirements fatally encouraged them 
to try and establish their own righteousness, a thing they could 
never do, while heathen were in no such danger. 

The world's deepest moral sense now agrees with the Apostle. 
All men come far short of moral perfection. None live up to 
their best light. Sin is in every heart. Explain it as one will, 
or not explain it at all, the fact is that moral evil is a ubiquitous 
phenomenon. We are not what we ought to be. We are 
alienated from God. We need redemption. This allegation 
of the Apostle is so universally admitted that its truth need not 
be dwelt upon further. 

II. The law offers no remedy for sin, no power to bring man 
into moral union with God. By works of law no flesh can be 
justified in God's sight. The law can show men how sinful 
they are but can afford them no positive help in freeing them- 
selves from sin. 

It is our duty to inquire sharply for the Apostle's meaning 
here, since all sorts of ideas have been ascribed to his language. 
He does not tell us that do what he will man can not make 
himself as if he had never sinned. This is true. We believe 
it reverent to say that God himself can never place our charac- 
ters in exactly the state where they would have been had we 
never transgressed. But if the Bible anywhere says this it does 



Lesson II.} REDEMPTION IN CHRtST. 345 

not say it here. Nor is it the thought of the passage that 
nothing whatever which man can do independently of the 
special grace of God can render him now or hereafter what he 
ought to be. That may be true but is not taught in this place. 
Whether or not any of us can become righteous "in his own 
strength " is not here declared, or whether ability and responsi- 
bility are coextensive, or whether the clear knowledge of moral 
law has a tendency to prompt rational beings to obey it. 

What is alleged is, in brief, this, that no system of law as 
such can act remedially. Law is a rule, not a force. It can 
direct ; it cannot amend. Through law comes the knowledge 
of sin. Law points out how bad we are; but, unless some 
positive agency, medicinal instead of directive and minatory, 
can be brought to bear upon us, the sin abides and the sinner 
dies. In saying this the writer has in mind mainly the 
Jewish law, but all that he lays down is equally true of the 
moral law. The law of God itself, as distinguished from the 
grace of God acting according to law, is not remedial. The 
cure of sin must be a force, not a prescription. 

More particularly, the Apostle would have us understand 
that character can by no possibility be built up, or the favor 
of God secured, by any mere observance of ordinances. This 
was the prevailing, stubborn, deadly error of the Pharisees, 
among whom Paul had been educated. They asked : What 
has the Almightly commanded us to do? meaning particular 
acts. What has he forbidden? That is, what specific deeds 
and doings ? And the Rabbis answered : The divine ordinance 
is so and so and so. Thou shalt offer sacrifice ; thou shalt 
keep the Sabbath ; thou shalt speak the truth ; thou shalt pay 
tithes. Thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not bear false witness ; 
thou shalt not travel more than so far on the sacred day. 
Thus do, thus abstain, and thou shalt live. 

These mandates illustrate the Jew's whole code, and he had 
by false religious teaching been led to identify perfect obedi- 



346 REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. [Fourth Quarter. 

ence to God with the diligent keeping of them. Some Jews 
doubtless had a less superficial thought than others, as, to-day, 
certain heathen worship the spirit behind the idol while others 
think of the idol alone. But the tendency was to rest in these 
mere " works of the law." The Apostle wishes to warn 
against this danger. Righteousness is a different, an infinitely 
deeper thing than mere code-keeping. It is a state of heart. 
By those works of the law can no flesh ever be made righteous 
or ever be regarded righteous in the sight of God. 

III. " But now a righteousness of God has been manifested 
apart from the law, though witnessed to by the law and also by 
the prophets, — a righteousness of God which comes into ex- 
istence through faith in Jesus Christ and is for all who believe ; 
for there is no difference, all having sinned and fallen short of 
the glory of God, so that men are made and declared right- 
eous, if at all, gratuitously, by his grace, through the redemp- 
tion that is in Christ Jesus. Him did God set forth as a pro- 
pitiation, on condition of faith, in his blood, in order to 
exhibit his, God's, righteousness, ... to the end that 
God may remain righteous and at the same time make and 
declare righteous him who is of faith in Jesus." 

In these words is the heart of Christ's gospel. They set 
forth the whole essence of the plan of salvation "by the Son of 
God. Study them carefully ; read them over a hundred times. 
What the law could not do in that it was weak through the 
flesh, has after all been achieved by the life and death of 
Jesus. Let us consider these propositions in some detail. 

i. A righteousness of God has been revealed. It is God's 
righteousness, hence a true righteousness, radical, deep, saving. 
It is not formal ; it does not consist in ordinance-keeping or 
ceremonial. It is a renewed state of heart. The subject of 
it has love for his deepest motive in all things. His character 
is therefore, at bottom, just like God's. This is what is meant 
by his having God's righteousness. He has Christ's righteous- 



IeSson ii.] bEDfeMpnoisr In CHiust. 347 

ness too, — the same in kind. It may be at present undevel- 
oped and so relatively feeble, but if it has really begun in any 
case, however faint and unpromising its action, it will surely 
master and sanctify the man at last. Men's knowledge of it is 
through revelation. The wisest teachers on earth had had no 
clear thought of such a possibility before Christ. That men 
could thus become partakers of the divine nature ; that sinners 
could be thoroughly purged from guilt and fitted for heaven, 
this was new doctrine to Jew as well as to Greek. Christ 
" manifested " it. This is what his gospel meant, that sinners 
can be really saved. 

2. This plan of real salvation, though witnessed to by the 
law and also by the prophets, for it is the deep meaning of 
both, is independent of law-keeping, as the Jews viewed this ; 
it is gratuitous and free. It does not arise or take effect through 
legality in any form. The " works of the law " do not help it 
along : many of them — any of them, indeed, if performed in 
a legalist spirit — are a hindrance to it. It is hence as available 
for heathen as for the covenant people. The Jews no longer 
have any monopoly of salvation, for, unless they keep their law 
from deeper motives than they commonly enjoin, they fail of 
salvation, while heathen who hail the new revelation and act, 
however ignorantly and imperfectly, from the proper motives, 
are saved. 

3. The new, real salvation originates in faith, faith in Jesus 
Christ. It actually originates in that faith. Faith is not ap- 
pointed its condition arbitrarily. Salvation is based upon faith 
because salvation itself consists in character, and faith is or in- 
volves, inchoate, that very character. He who savingly believes 
in Christ possesses somewhat of Christ's likeness. He takes 
Christ for his model. He has a love for his Lord which must in 
time transform him out of his first self and make him holy. 
Salification is no magic process. Enraptured by the supernal 
beauty of Christ's character, the believer is moulded little by 



348 REDEMPTION IN CHRIS?. tFotJRTH QuAktEfe. 

little into Christ's image. Faith is the first step in the process, 
all-important because of what it leads to, yet not different in 
kind from any of those which follow. When the first step is 
taken the Christian begins to have that righteousness of God 
and of Christ. This is therefore " imputed " to him. It is 
not " imputed " without being there. God is no bungling 
book-keeper. He makes no false entries. Righteousness is 
" imputed " to us, if at all, because in some degree we possess 
it. We are " declared righteous," justified, because at heart 
we are so, it now remaining for any believer only to subdue the 
outlying parts of his nature to his renewed will. 

4. Such a real salvation would have been impossible but 
for the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ. This truth, 
persistently iterated in Scripture, is the offence of the cross. 
Men dislike to think of their destiny at God's hands as affected 
by the conditions of God's general moral government. Some- 
what thoughtful people often say : If God is love why should 
he not save any sinner on the simple condition of repentance ? 
Why is an atonement required? Certainly it is no defect in 
God's love which necessitates an atonement ; it is the imper- 
fection, the stupidity of man. Were God to announce forgive- 
ness without atonement, on the lone condition of repentance, 
men would account his offer as implying a low estimate on his 
part of the heinousness of moral evil. They would thus be 
less inclined to renounce this ; God's apparent benignity turn- 
ing out to be in effect cruelty and not goodness at all. There 
was needed some mode by which God could testify that free 
forgiveness of sin by him does not import any lowering of his 
estimate touching sin's enormity. This is effected by the life 
and death of Jesus, which revealed the damnableness of sin 
and the splendor of righteousness as thoroughly as this could 
have been done by the everlasting perdition of all who ever 
sinned. It is thus that God can remain apparently as well as 
really righteous, yet make and so declare righteous every one 



Lesson II.] REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. 349 

who is of faith in Jesus. Christ does not suffer the strict antl 
proper penalty of our sins, in such wise that we shall escape 
penalty whether we repent or not. He does something far 
better than this. He brings it about that, if we repent, our 
sins may be forgiven out and out and their penalty not be suf- 
fered by any one. God does not in the atonement " put to 
death the wrong man," as Ingersoll blasphemeously glosses the 
evangelical theory ; he only takes occasion to display once and 
forever his ineffable execration of sin. This done and done 
effectively, free forgiveness is safe. It will not make men think 
sin a light affair. Now the Spirit can be sent forth with a power 
he never exercised under the old dispensation. Now it is gra- 
ciously politic to proclaim through all the earth : Ho, every 
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters of life. 

IV. The atonement not only relates to the present and 
future ; it has a deep meaning in reference to the past, explain- 
ing the leniency of God's dealing with men before Christ came. 
" Him did God set forth as a propitiation, on condition of 
faith, in his blood, in order at this present time to exhibit his, 
God's, righteousness in view of the fact that in his forbearance 
he had passed over the sins previously committed." 

The above exposition makes the passage just paraphrased 
clear. All men ever saved or ever to be saved, — heathen, Jews 
or Christians, are saved through the atonement of Christ. In 
all his earlier dealings with our race, the Almighty kept in view 
what the Messiah would be and do. There were saints in the 
Jewish world, many of them, and a few in heathendom. They 
" obtained a good testimony through their faith, but did not 
receive the promise, God having provided something better 
concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made 
perfect." 

The old dispensation was not a closed dispensation, but a 
preparatory one. In that period of the world God treated men 
with a leniency and a grace which, as pointed out under III, 4, 



35 O REDEMPTION IN CHRIST. [Fourth Quarter. 

would have endangered his moral government had the then 
order of things been independent of what was to come. We 
are led to suppose that in that case penalties would have had 
to be sterner than they actually were. Moral progress, the 
course of redemption among people anterior to Christ, must 
have been hindered by the lateness of his arrival. There was 
then, except in isolated cases, no such sense of sin's deadliness 
and blackness as now prevails, the consequence being that men 
the more readily remained under its power. There are hints 
that many an Old Testament worthy, like Jonah, felt this lack. 
God's attitude toward sin, as then revealed, was not severe 
enough to match their own feeling of its malignancy. The 
Ruler of the Universe felt this too, but he bided his time, 
awaiting the ministry of him whose life and death were to make 
clear God's true abomination of sin as the one accursed thing 
for which he and his universe have no use. Intelligences that 
were confused upon this point before the Incarnation, if not 
enlightened now, will one day be. 

The central teaching of this lesson is that Christianity is a 
scheme not for obviating or suppressing or toning down moral law, 
but in aid of its execution and fuller play. The Gospel is not 
sent to save men without moral character, but to produce in them 
moral character so that they may be saved indeed. Proceed- 
ing upon the irrefragable principle that " without holiness no 
man shall see the Lord," it proposes to induce and establish 
holiness in all hearts. True religion makes men fit for heaven ; 
it does not juggle them in unfit. Jesus came that men might 
have life. He has in store for such as obey him not a status 
but a state. He purposes and will accomplish for every believer 
a Real Salvation. 



lessen? III. October 15. 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
Romans v: i-ii. 

By Rev. GEORGE B. GOW, D. D., Gijsns Fau,s, N. Y. 

JUSTIFICATION brings to the believer in Jesus blessings 
immeasurable. The cost of justification fortifies our assur- 
ance that the purposes of grace involved in it will be 
accomplished. These two truths furnish the material of our 
lesson. 

To justify is to make righteous. In what sense and by what 
means does this occur? Paul's doctrine is that God in the 
suffering of his Son, of which " the blood of Jesus " is a 
comprehensive symbol, presented to mankind such an " exhibi- 
tion of his righteousness " that now without sacrifice of right- 
eousness he can make and declare righteous the believer in 
Jesus. (Rom. hi : 25-26.) 

According to this scriptural view two things are impossible : 
first, to make any sinner who refuses to believe in Jesus a 
righteous person : second, to make believers righteous without 
some such display of the divine righteousness as appears in the 
suffering of the Son of God. These are the two co-ordinate 
necessities of justification. Questions of great difficulty are 
connected with them, but they must be held fast in all discus- 
sion of redemption. 

The incarnation is incomprehensible by us, but to the thought- 



352 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [Fourth Quarter. 

fill mind the Holy Lawgiver and Ruler of the universe does 
appear with transcendent clearness and force in Jesus. The 
philosophy of it is wrapped in mystery, the fact is indisputable. 
The suffering of the Incarnate Word is beyond finite measure. 
All the suffering of holy men living and dying in martyrdom, 
does but hint at its limitless proportions. The most impressive 
fact in the life of Jesus is that though sinless and because 
righteous " he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 

However incomplete our apprehension of the righteousness 
that found expression in Jesus, we do know some things touch- 
ing it. It is the righteousness of God, the expression of his 
wisdom concerning conduct, the rule by which he governs 
himself in the manifestation of his love. It is the righteous- 
ness that asserts itself in all normal action of man's moral 
character. Always essentially one in nature it takes a form 
in every manifestation suited to the purpose involved. For the 
judicial expression of the ill-desert of sin it takes the form of 
penalty. This is the guise which it wears in its relation to us 
as sinners consciously deserving penalty. It confronts us as the 
wrath of God, which is as true an expression of his love as of 
his wisdom and righteousness, though to the soul conscious of 
guilt, a consuming fire. For the purpose of redemption, to 
open to the sinner the possibility of recovering his lost right- 
eousness, it assumes the form of propitiatory suffering — the suf- 
fering of a high priest who by the power of his holy love suffers 
with (Heb. iv : 15) the soul conscious of guilt and consumed by 
wrath. We repeat that it is the same love whether it appears as 
penalty or as propitiation. This is the righteousness that appears 
in every work, word and groan, in every active movement and 
in all the silent endurance of the God-man. 

It would be presumption to suppose that we comprehend 
the entire bearing upon men's justification of the righteous- 
ness which finds voice in the suffering of Jesus Christ, but the 
primary and essential element in justification is simple and 



tESSON ill.] JUSTIFICATION BV FAlfBJ. : 353 

easily understood. The penalty of sin, wherever inflicted, 
exhibits the perfect and changeless righteousness of God. The 
propitiatory suffering of Christ exhibits the same, however much 
more it may show forth. Penalty as executed reveals the 
moral feeling of God toward a sinner. Propitiation j under 
given conditions^ accomplishes the same purpose besides 
bringing out other important aspects of the divine nature. The 
standing of the sinner in the moral universe under the con- 
demnation of God is hopeless. The standing of the penitent 
sinner, for whom the propitiatory suffering of Jesus has become 
efficient, is full of hope. That suffering, as vice-penal, accom- 
plishing the purpose of penalty, has set him right. It has 
brought him justification. Is the wrath of God toward impeni- 
tent men just and necessary, as the expression of his righteous- 
ness? Is it truthful? Does it, where displayed, accomplish a 
necessary purpose in the administration of moral law ? If so, it 
can give place only to some other expression of the divine 
righteousness which, under the given conditions, accomplishes 
the same purpose as well or better. Penalty or something that 
shall do the work of penalty is therefore the inevitable demand 
of a holy being in dealing with sin — the demand of perfect 
love regulated by perfect wisdom. 

Such vice-penal suffering is vicarious because it is endured 
by another than the one for whom it avails. It is propitiatory, 
not because it works a change in the "moral nature or eternal 
purpose of God, but because it grounds a changed moral state 
in the believer, and hence also a changed judgment on the part 
of God concerning such believer. 

We now go on to notice that to the justification of a believer 
another condition is requisite besides that deed or appliance 
of grace which is to take the place of the execution of penalty 
upon him. 

In Romans hi. 25, 26, Paul speaks of God as setting forth 
Christ in his blood to be a propitiation, that he may justify 

23 



354 JUSTIFICATION BY FAlTtf. [Fotmf tt Quarter. 

him who is of faith in Jesus. Faith then is necessary to justi- 
fication, but faith is not the whole righteousness or right standing 
with God of which the Apostle speaks. God makes the believer 
righteous, justifies him, mainly after he has become a believer. 
Paul here uses the term "justify," with primary reference to a 
making righteous which presupposes that the sinner has become 
a believer. There are then two senses in which a sinner is 
justified or made righteous. A sinner is made righteous in his 
relation to law and penalty by the propitiatory work of Christ, 
and his justification declares this new relation. But as a 
justification of this justification, so to speak, he must be made 
righteous in his personal character. This righting up of the 
sinner in himself occurs through the influence of faith. 

Faith in what? To this important question the answer 
is, Faith in Jesus. - That means, comprehensively, faith in the 
righteousness of God set forth in Christ, that righteousenss 
which is revealed in penalty, but which, in the suffering of 
Christ, appears not merely as doing the work of penalty, but as 
saturated with the love from which it springs, and of which it 
is the highest possible expression. 

But what is faith ? It is not merely an opinion about Jesus. 
It is far more than a conviction that, since God has found a 
way of making known his righteousness which admits of the 
remission of penalty, therefore we have nothing to fear from 
the wrath of God, notwithstanding our guilt. The faith that 
puts a man right in himself is the response of the whole man 
to the truth, goodness and justice of that righteousness which 
appears in the suffering Christ, the apprehension of it as the 
righteousness of God under which the sinner is justly con- 
demned, the loving acceptance of it as good and just, making 
it the heart's new delight, and the law of its new life. Such 
faith is a necessary condition of justification in the strict sense 
of the word, for certainly it would be impossible to accept a 
sinner as right before law for the sake of the work of Christ, if 



Lessox Hi.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 355 

that righteousness of God which is present in the suffering 
Christ has made no impression upon him. He can be justified 
on account of it, only in view of the fact that he has been or 
is in a sure way to be transformed by it. 

If this is the true thought concerning God's righteousness as 
seen in the blood of Jesus, that which follows in our lesson is 
clear and very forcible. 

"Being therefore justified by faith, let us have peace with 
God." The hortatory form recognizes the element of freedom 
in religious experience. Peace for the believer is the purchase 
of Jesus' blood, but he enters into and abides in it by the con- 
scious exercise of faith, as a free act and a continual experience. 
Let every man having believed in Jesus, watch lest through 
carelessness his faith lapse and tempests again cloud his life. 
But we need not despair as we recognize that our perseverance 
in the peace of the gospel is in some degree dependent upon 
our free choice. " For, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we 
have also had our access into this grace wherein we stand." 
The favor of God covers all our need. It abides with us, 
and creates a gracious condition of things in which firm footing 
is possible and natural. It appears in all that is covered by the 
terms regeneration and sanctification, in the beginning of a 
gracious work in the soul and in the " perfecting of that work 
until the day of Jesus Christ." As Frederick Faber sings : 

"Oh, wonderful ! oh, passing thought, 
The love that God hath had for thee ! 
Spending on thee no less a sum 
Than the undivided Trinity. 

Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost 

Exhausted for a thing like this ! 
The world's whole go\ernment disposed 

For one ungrateful creature's bliss ! " 

Here is the mystery of grace. Though free, though in con- 
tinual peril from the weakness of our nature and the instability 



356 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [Fourth Quarter. 

of our will, we are nevertheless secure by a constant divine 
energy which, without impairing the freedom that makes us 
Godlike in nature, brings us ultimately to the perfection of 
Godlike character. The Apostle therefore adds, "Let us 
rejoice in hope of the glory of God." The Christian is not the 
traveler who drinks of the wayside spring and is refreshed. 
He is the fountain itself whose business it is to bubble and flow 
continually with clear, sparkling waters. Let us rejoice. The 
hope of sharing the eternal glory of God's holiness is ours. It 
will not make us ashamed. By this grace into which faith intro- 
duced us, and in which by faith we stand, the perfection of our 
redemption is assured. 

" And not only so, but let us also rejoice in our tribulations." 
Not indeed that trouble is in itself a thing of joy, but we dis- 
cover the fact, of infinite comfort to us, that "'tribulation" — 
the pressure of afflictions upon us — worketh Godlike strength 
to endure. Such divine " patience " develops the conscious- 
ness of a "tried and proved character," the very thing at 
which redemption aims ; and this " probation " lifts to 
stronger and loftier " hope " as we climb the ladder of experi- 
ence. The assurance that perfected character is in store for 
us gives a foretaste of heaven. " Hope putteth not to shame." 
The consciousness of the love of God shed abroad in our 
hearts through the Holy Ghost given unto us at the 
beginning of our faith and abiding in us by the same grace, is 
the basis of this hope, and it should never leave us. We will 
rejoice. What could come to the Apostle's mind with more 
force than the certainty that this redemption, begun in the 
blood of Jesus, will be accomplished for every believer? God 
is behind it, is immanent in it, not as mere law but as love 
under law to wisdom. We were weak by reason of sin, but 
"in due season Christ died for the ungodly." " Scarcely for a 
righteous man," as men would think who know not the 
possibilities of divine love, " will one die." The utmost to be 



Lesson III.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 357 

said is that some man, possessed in a high degree of the martyr 
spirit, might even dare to die for a good man. But here, 
sum of all grace ! original of all love ! fount eternal of all 
goodness ! " God commendeth his love toward us in that, 
while we were yet sinners," wilful, despicable sinners, against 
this infinite love, Christ, God's own self incarnate, died on 
our behalf. 

Upon the basis of this thought, by means of an argument 
from the less to the greater, the Apostle concludes : " Much 
more then, being now justified by Christ's blood, shall we be 
saved from the wrath of God through him." To be justified 
by the blood of Jesus is to be restored to favor with God 
so far as our relation to law and condemnation is concerned. 
But justification requires faith on the part of the sinner. 

Faith is righteousness in living germ, the fruit of the Spirit, 
the new life in Christ. But this new life must be sustained. 
Let it lapse and the soul sinks under the wrath of God as 
surely as a drowning man into the depth of the sea. The 
sinner needs therefore something more than the initial justi- 
fication that sets him right. He needs a progressive justifica- 
tion, called by the Apostle " sanctification," which shall keep 
him right, or rather make it certain that he will keep himself 
right, a sanctifying power which will cause the germ of right- 
eousness, already originated in him by faith, to grow and pos- 
sess the whole man. This sanctification is our complete salva- 
tion from the wrath of God. Being justified, reconciled, 
restored to the favor of God through faith, this blessed con- 
dition shall be maintained and perfected through Christ, "by 
his life." 

If the rescue how much more the perfecting ! "Is not the 
life more than food? " If he made us will he not feed us? So 
our Saviour reasons when on earth he addresses his timid 
hearers, men of little faith. So Paul reasons about the salva- 
tion which Christ offers to all who have ears to hear. If our 



358 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [Fourth Quarter. 

enmity to holiness, our uncleanness and bitterness of spirit 
towards God, could not deter him from seeking us and suffer- 
ing with us in holy endurance to redeem us, will he not love 
us still, now that his holiness has won our love, his beauty 
sweetened our temper, his righteousness cleansed and taken 
possession of our souls ? It would be absurd in God, having put 
forth the matchless grace which has set us in the path of holi- 
ness, not to continue his gracious work in us till our holiness 
is complete. 

A son, rebelling against his father's home and law, forsakes 
his father's altar for haunts of vice. But his father gives him 
no peace in his folly. From city to city and from den to den 
the boy seeks a hiding place from his father's uncompromising 
love, but in vain. One night a tempest bursts upon his vile 
retreat, and levels it in ruins to the earth. Himself bleeding 
and in peril of his life, the father, from whom he has never 
escaped, drags the son, half dead, from the wreck, bears him 
tenderly to his own bed, and patiently nurses him back to 
health. Released by exhaustion from the power of appetite, 
a new affection enters the youth's soul. He sees how great the 
love on which he has trampled. His father's agony gives him 
a new idea of what righteousness is, its stern side — for the father 
has not compromised with the son's depravity in the slightest — 
as well as its tenderness. He sees, too, how damnable a thing 
sin is and how worthy the sinner to be left to himself for ever. 
Repentance and holy resolution spring up within him. He is 
a new creature. 

Shall he now be flung back into the world of his former 
choice? "I deserve to be," he says, even weeping. "I am 
no more worthy to be called a son." Such treatment would 
well exhibit what filial enmity deserves. That proper purpose 
of penalty it would indeed serve. But the holy suffering of his 
father has far more effectually compassed that end both for the 
son and for all others affected by the case. That suffering, 



Wesson III.] 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 



359 



therefore, is vicarious and propitiatory. So the father feels, 
and embracing his penitent boy he answers, " Nay, my son, 
you shall not go. I have suffered for you.. I have kept your 
place in the home and it is yours as if you had never wronged 
us. You are my son now, purchased by agony ineffable though 
most freely suffered. The penitent boy is justified through 
faith in his father's blood. 

And now, is there anything in the old home needful for the 
son's continuance in virtue that his father will withhold from 
him? And if what the father has done and suffered has been 
effectual to reform the son and to reconcile him to his father 
and his father to him, is it not certain that the same regimen 
of grace, so beautiful now as exhibited in a thousand daily acts 
of goodness, will avail to drive from the returned prodigal the 
last vestiges and seeds of his old life ? Thus human experi- 
ence may teach us the meaning of that momentous saying : 
" He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us 
all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things." 



lessoi} 11/. October 22. 



CHRISTIAN LIVING. 
Romans xii: 1-15. 

By Rev. Wm. M. LAWRENCE, D. D., Chicago, Iij,. 

AS living may be simply a struggle for existence, so chris- 
tian living may be vague and ineffective, based on no 
clear idea of the proper relationship between christian 
profession and life. This is unfortunate, because the Christian's 
happiness and usefulness are affected by the lack. The mere 
professor of religion cannot feel the satisfaction which comes 
from accomplishing christian work, while the world cares noth- 
ing for christian theory, and knows Christ only through the 
lives of his followers. Christian living is broader than the 
nominal or real christian work with which it is often confused. 
It is a positive misfortune to make these public relations of the 
Christian synonymous with christian living. Church work 
necessarily covers but a small part of our life. The New Testa- 
ment says surprisingly little about specific forms of christian 
activity ; but it is full of instruction regarding christian living. 
To-day's scripture is an illustration of all this. The hasty 
reader suffers a shock when he compares the close reasoning 
and the exact method pursued by the Apostle in the preceding 
chapters with the collection of mottoes that seem to be gath- 
ered up and thrown together in this. But when we look closer 
we see that this chapter is a conclusion rather than a mere set 
of commands, Its exhortations are the logical sequence of all 



Lesson IV.] CHRISTIAN LIVING. 36 1 

that precedes. It points to a conflict, describes the foe, and 
indicates the tactics whereby victory is to come. 

I. THE CONFLICT. 

This is distinctly a christian experience. Though in a gen- 
eral way the principle of action and re-action, of life through 
strife, applies to all moral struggles, its specific application in 
Paul's mind is, in this verse as elsewhere in the Epistle, to 
believers. What is the moral position of the Christian after 
conversion ? Godet aptly describes it when he says : " The 
believer is dead to sin no doubt ; he has broken with that per- 
fidious friend. But sin is not dead in him, and it strives con- 
tinually to restore the broken relation." This conflict makes 
up the Christian's life, he growing stronger and the conflict less 
violent, till ultimately the victory, through Christ and the Holy 
Spirit, is his. This accords with our experience ; not in the 
earlier stages of our christian life, when the joy of pardon brings 
ecstasy each moment, and Christ's love banishes all thought of 
sorrow ; but as years pass by, the soul recognizes that between 
its life and the principles controlling it, and the life and princi- 
ples of the world there is irreconcilable disharmony and combat. 

No small danger lurks for the inexperienced convert while 
he is learning that pure and real religion is not emotion, senti- 
ment, or feeling, but principle in action, action incessant and 
watchful, ofttimes anxious and painful. The real satisfaction 
of the christian life, and it is ineffable, comes not from emotion 
but from rational experience of the oneness of the soul with 
God. Not alone christian experience shows that the way to 
perfection is through trial, but also the testimony of Scripture. 
The sacrifice of Christ is our reconciliation, but, being recon- 
ciled, we are to present our bodies before him in living sacri- 
fice as our reasonable service. The regenerating act of God 
is the seed whence renewed life is to grow. But all life is strife 
with adverse forms of life, with the elements, with the soul, 



362 CHRISTIAN LIVING. [Fourth Quarter. 

Christian life is no exception to this principle. We are to grow 
in grace, to work out, not for, our salvation. Happy the disciple 
of the Lord Jesus who has ceased to expect earthly joy in any 
cessation of conflict, but who, asking only, Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do? goes steadfastly on in the path of duty, fighting 
the good fight and contentedly leaving to God the bestowment 
of reward. 

II. THE GREAT FOE. 

If, as some suppose, Paul in the first verse of our chapter 
refers to the sacrifice of reconciliation, the Christian's warfare 
consists not so much in joining issue with forces outside the 
soul as in overcoming those within. A skilful general does not 
deploy his army over every acre of ground between himself and 
the enemy. He scans the battle-field and selects the key 
positions both on his side and on that of the enemy, so that his 
attack and his defense may be conducted in the wisest way. 
Great generalship oftener turns on this than on bravery or 
dash. All depends on mastery of strategic positions, where the 
ablest fighters are. 

So in this chapter, the Apostle views the whole field of each 
probationer's struggle and selects the main enemy, noting well 
his position, strong for both attack and defense. He sees that 
the sovereign foe to be overcome in our natures is selfishness, 
in its various forms of anger, pride, revenge, ambition and 
retaliation. The very best of men find that on some occasions 
in their lives they are called upon to battle sternly with these 
passions, and that surrender means slavery. Selfishness in its 
coarse and gross forms everyone condemns. Its subtler onsets 
are the ones most likely to be fatal, when it attacks in the guise 
of some right, virtue or christian grace. Paul guards against 
a perversion of his meaning by saying : " Let no man think 
more highly of himself than he ought to think." Every man 
is entitled to appreciate justly his own merits. There is, there- 



Lesson IV.] 



CHRISTIAN LIVING. 



363 



fore, a pride which is not sinful, which may even involve virtue. 
But there is also a selfish pride, very different from the self- 
respect of a conscientious man, and into none of Satan's snares 
do we more easily fall. 

In like manner, it is usually legitimate for each of us to 
defend his rights, and there may sometimes be involved in this 
the infliction upon any who transgress them of some penalty or 
other hardship to serve as a restraint for the future. But revenge, 
the malignant and purposeless infliction of pain, is a very dif- 
ferent thing from this. It is always and wholly of the devil, and 
no temptation which ever comes to man can possibly justify it. 

In a famous trial not long since, the leading counsel on one 
side was an able lawyer whose face an accident in his youth 
had much disfigured. The contest was bitter, and the opposing 
attorney was beaten at every point. Stung by his defeat, he so 
far forgot himself as to taunt his antagonist with his physical 
defect. Breathless was the stillness in the court-room, and 
hundreds of pitying eyes were bent on the scarred face of the 
legal gentleman, who slowly rose and addressed the court. 
"Your Honor," said he, "never before in all my life have I felt 
called upon to explain the cause of my facial deformity, but I 
will do so now. My mother, God bless her, said I was a pretty 
boy when little, but one day as I was playing round an open 
fire with a sister just beginning to walk, she fell into the roaring 
flames. I rescued her before she was hurt but fell into the 
fire myself. When they took me out of the coals my face was 
as black as that man's heart." This sentence was greeted 
with loud applause for the speaker and contemptuous hisses 
for the one who had so cruelly wronged him. The retort was 
deserved, but was it justified ? Great as was the provocation 
it was in the main a temptation merely to inflict pain. I cannot 
avoid the conviction that the great orator would have been a 
better man had he been able to suppress the telling comparison 
with which he closed. 



364 CHRISTIAN LIVING. [Fourth Quarter. 

Few people are aware how much selfishness exists within 
them. In the day in which we live, the tendency is uncom- 
monly strong for men to avail themselves of all their accidental 
advantages and ignore the rights of their fellows. A Christian 
needs to be ever on his guard lest this arch enemy become 
intrenched in his soul, getting possession of its main strongholds 
and so reducing the man's Christianity to a mere lifeless pro- 
fession. 

III. THE MEANS OF VICTORY. 

The Apostle goes on to indicate to us those principles by 
which our lives may be made victorious over these special foes 
and over all others that may assail us. What shall a man do 
who discovers that he has within himself this terrible enemy of 
selfishness, of morbid and sinful relf-regard? 

The Apostle urges the cultivation of humility. Let this be 
understood, for the term humility is used so frequently as to be 
almost void of meaning. What is humility? Is it self-debase- 
ment or self-depreciation ? No, humility is not the reverse of 
manliness, but a real and just appreciation of our sins and 
other limitations on the Godward side, as well as of our true 
relations to our fellowmen. As wicked pride takes no account 
of obligation to God, so it ignores the dependence of man on 
man. A bright boy just entering college may be very proud 
till he finds that the other boys know as much or more than he 
does. Then his pride suffers a fall, and unless the vice is 
peculiarly deep-seated, humility has a chance to become per- 
manently characteristic of him. His real power now immensely 
increases, for as he works for others he makes others carry out 
his ends. " So we being many are one body in Christ." In 
such union is strength not only for all but for each. The isola- 
tion caused by pride and other forms of sinful self love is the 
great source of human weakness. The power of the christian 
life comes from identification of our own welfare with that of 
others. 



Lesson IV.] CHRISTIAN LIVING. 3 6$ 

The sweep of this truth is immense. Here is the solution of 
all the troubles now affecting the various ranks of life. Not 
the passage of resolutions by religious bodies, not the appoint- 
ment of investigating committees or the enactment of laws by 
Congress, but the christian humility that shall make the rich and 
great identify themselves in interest with the lowliest, the appli- 
cation to living questions of the idea that " one is your Master, 
even Christ, and all ye are brethren : " this is the only means 
for securing peace between the different members and ranks of 
society. 

But humility is in itself a fruit, the fruit of love. The world 
is being conquered by the love of God displayed in sending 
his Son. The impatience of men, the defiance they hurl at his 
laws, their plottings to defeat his will, are finally to be overcome 
by his long patience. We also are to possess this love, to help 
us to overcome in our disappointments and vexations. What 
the inspired writer specially insists on is that this love of ours 
be genuine. " Let love be without dissimulation ; abhor that 
which is evil." Certainly no other evil could be so great as an 
affectation of love. If the spirit of genuine love could only 
prevail in commercial and social affairs, if christian men in 
business, instead of following the law of retaliation so much 
censured by them in individual relations, would act upon the 
law of love, there would be an exhibition of christian living 
whose moral power would go far toward settling the vexed 
questions of the day. The higher men are in the scale of in- 
telligence and morality, the greater the obligation upon them 
to go according to this christian law. The christian employer 
owes to his ignorant employee a debt measured by the scale of 
his privileges and his superior light. 

Let it be remembered that every effort one may make to ex- 
emplify love will result in the development of his spiritual na- 
ture. No general advance may be at once observable, but a 
forward movement will certainly come, a progress of different 



366 CHRISTIAN LIVING. [Fourth Quarter. 

parts of the nature, just as the whole body is fitted for living 
by exercising different muscles at various times and is kept in 
health by attention to its several functions. Also it is through 
christian living that men gain power over others. " Ye are the 
light of the world." A wise old friend once said to me, " Re- 
member that your greatest victory will be to turn the enemies 
of the Lord Jesus into his friends." We are to overcome by 
making men feel that we are their friends. We cannot do this 
by any worldly temper. The proud man is repelled by pride, 
the selfish man by selfishness, the angry man by an exhibition 
of anger in others. It is christian living that is to gain us our 
end. It is living like Christ. 

With the theories of Christianity, its doctrines and its past, 
all men are familiar. What men want to-day is the life of Christ 
actually lived over in the lives of his people. It was Christ 
" who for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty 
might become rich." It was the Lord Jesus who turned and 
looked upon Peter that look of love which melted his heart. 
I have often striven to realize the interview after the resurrec- 
tion between that impulsive, loving, blundering disciple and 
his Lord. It was Christ who when earth's views were fading 
from his sight said, " Father, forgive them." It is related of 
some missionaries that they lived and labored among the people 
to whom they had been sent for many months without success. 
They sought to accomplish their work by civilizing influences, 
but to no purpose. Finally they gathered a few natives around 
them and rehearsed in plain conversation the story of Christ. 
The effect was marvelous, and the missionaries had the satis- 
faction of knowing the truth of his words : "And I if I be lifted 
up, will draw all men unto me." What happened there will 
occur anywhere if men strive to realize the words of the Apos- 
tle, " For me to live is Christ." It is that story set forth simply, 
sympathetically and sincerely in the lives of his followers that 
leads a man to desire with all his heart to enter the christian path. 



(essop I/. October 29. 



ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. 

/ Corinthians viii : 1-13- 
By Rev. Professor R. S. CO WELL, D. D., Granvieee, O. 



THE First Epistle to the Corinthians is one of the few 
parts of the New Testament whose genuineness and 
authenticity have never been seriously assailed. It was 
written by Paul, probably from Ephesus, about 57 A. D., to the 
church at the Greek city of Corinth. This church, as we learn 
from the eighteenth chapter of Acts, had been founded by Paul 
during his second great missionary tour, and was, for the most 
part, composed of Gentile Christians. The city of Corinth 
was distinguished for its commerce, its wealth, its intellectual 
activity, and likewise for its wantonness and corruption. It is 
not strange that the church, situated in a city of such character, 
soon found its peace disturbed and its existence endangered 
by internal difficulties. Party strifes, heresies of doctrine, 
improprieties in the observance of the Lord's Supper, and even 
gross and revolting crimes were among the sins of which the 
members of this church seem to have been guilty. In the 
midst of their troubles, they applied to Paul for instruction and 
advice in regard to their relations with the world around them. 
Paul probably wrote this first Epistle to the Corinthians in 
response to this application. In some important particulars 
the epistle differs from the other epistles of Paul, but in no 
respect more than in the fact that, unlike the rest, it contains a 



368 ABSTttJEftCE FOR tHE SAfcE OF^OTHERS. ft otJMtt QuARtEfi. 

minimum of what we call " doctrinal discussion." Except the 
single passage which treats of the great doctrine of the resur- 
rection, there is here very little of such discussion. The letter 
has to do with practical affairs. But it is by no means less im- 
portant on that account. On the contrary ; in it we are shown 
how inspired wisdom applies divine truth to actual life. It 
gives us clear illustrations of the way in which the Apostle 
Paul decided just such matters as we must decide almost 
daily. 

One of the questions submitted to the Apostle pertained to 
eating meat offered to idols. Corinth was filled with a mixed 
population, which, worshipping a great variety of deities, offered 
sacrifices in many temples and at many shrines. These offer- 
ings were in fact so abundant that at times a large portion of 
the meat used for food had been presented before the shrine 
of some heathen deity. Consecrated meat was presented as 
food both at the feasts celebrated in the temples and at private 
banquets. For the Corinthian Christians, therefore, whose 
business and social relations brought them into frequent contact 
with this practice, it became a question of no small importance 
whether partaking of this food was consistent with their vows 
as Christians. This is the question which occupies the Apostle's 
attention in the passage before us. It cannot be other than 
interesting to observe how he decided the matter. From his 
directions we may not only learn how to make similar applica- 
tions under different circumstances, but we may also gain 
clearer conceptions of divine truth itself. 

It is noteworthy that Paul first discusses the question from 
the basis of the fundamental principle involved (vv. 1-6). He 
asserts that in the case of intelligent Christians, whose minds 
are informed and whose consciences are properly educated, 
this eating of meat offered to an idol is, in itself, perfectly 
innocent. That is, were they the only persons in the world, 
the question would not exist at all. They would then, and 



Lesson V.] ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. 369 

properly, feel as free to eat this meat as they would to eat at 
all. Such Christians know that there is nothing in the world 
corresponding to those gods which the idols are supposed to 
represent. Such beings exist only in the imaginations of the 
deluded worshippers. There is in the universe no basis what- 
ever, underlying the images which their imagination has con- 
structed. Therefore, to one who has such knowledge, the act 
of offering this meat in a so-called sacrifice before an idol 
image is a form entirely without meaning. It has no moral 
significance whatever. It is a mere empty parade without any 
proper influence upon the believer's conscience one way or the 
other. In this we find the Apostle's answer from the point of 
view of the deepest principle involved. It is perfectly clear 
and distinct, namely : that the moral quality of the act of eat- 
ing meat is in no way affected, in the case of those who have 
knowledge, those whom we may call normal Christians, by the 
fact that the meat has previously been offered in pretended 
worship to an idol. In other words, there is nothing in itself 
sinful in the act of eating meat which has been offered to idols. 

But while giving this answer, so clear and distinct that there 
remains no room for doubt as to his meaning, he takes occasion 
to caution his readers that there is, in the knowledge of the 
total non-existence of such things or beings as these heathen 
gods, nothing " building-up," nothing " edifying." Such knowl- 
edge is merely negative. Unless guarded, it may easily lead 
to undue elation. If anyone dwells on such special enlighten- 
ment and thinks that there is anything in it to commend him 
to God, the man is deficient at the very foundation of knowl- 
edge. " He knoweth- nothing as he ought to know it." 

After having pronounced thus explicitly on the first principle 
involved, the Apostle proceeds (vv. 7-8) to call the attention 
of these Corinthians to two other facts which ought to be con- 
sidered by them in deciding upon their duty in such cases, facts 
which have an important influence upon the decision which 

24 



370 ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. [Fourth Quarter. 

they are to make. The first of these facts is that this 
knowledge about the nonentity of heathen gods is something 
which all men do not possess. Some men, some Christians 
even, are in this respect uninformed and ignorant. They believe 
that heathen gods do exist. They have been accustomed to 
regard the adoration of idols as a real act of worship, and to 
think that to eat meat which has been consecrated in idol 
worship is in some sense to share in that worship. The other 
fact is that a man's attitude upon this matter of meat, of food, 
in itself considered, in no way commends the man to God. 
It has in, of and by itself, no moral quality at all. He who 
eats is no better, and he who refrains from eating is no worse. 
As Paul himself has expressed it in the fourteenth chapter of 
Romans, " The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, 
but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
There is, therefore, no obligation either way resting upon a 
Christian in regard to eating meat, so long as he acts conscien- 
tiously and so long as his own relation to the act is the only 
thing which comes into view. In this as in many other things 
not in themselves morally binding or intrinsically right or 
wrong, the Christian is left to the exercise of his own personal 
judgment. 

The Apostle then proceeds to discuss the influence which 
the knowledge of these two facts properly has upon the ques- 
tion submitted to him (vv. 9-12). In the estimation of the 
Apostle it does not settle the question of duty in regard to 
eating meat offered to idols to know that the act is not in itself 
wrong. There are other things which may determine the moral 
quality of an act beside the intrinsic nature of it. One of these 
things is the effect of such action upon others. The ignorance 
of others as well as one's own knowledge is an element in the 
problem. Although the eating of this idol meat is for those 
who have knowledge an innocent act, it is sinful for those who 
do not understand that these heathen gods have no existence. 



Lesson V.] ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. 37I 

It is possible therefore that the eating of this meat by those to 
whom it is not sinful, when witnessed by those to whom it is a 
sin, may embolden the latter to do the same thing, an act which 
in their case, since they have not this knowledge, would be 
wrong. In such a state of affairs as this, a state which seems 
to have existed at Corinth at the time, doing an act harmless 
in itself becomes a sin. In other words, on account of the 
ignorance of some of the Corinthians, it became wrong for 
those who had knowledge to do certain things intrinsically 
innocent. Under such circumstances, therefore, to do intrin- 
sically innocent things is to " sin against the brethren " and to 
" sin against Christ." Inasmuch as he has reached this con- 
clusion we are not at all surprised to read the sublime words 
with which the Apostle closes his discussion of the subject and 
gives his ultimate decision in regard to eating meat offered to 
idols, " If meat maketh my brother to stumble I will eat no 
flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble." 

We have thus seen that the Corinthian Christians received 
their answer, an answer full and explicit, an answer founded on 
general principles and applied to the specific case, an answer 
which would leave no room for doubt as to either the principle 
or its application. But the difficulty which disturbed the Cor- 
inthian church has long since passed away. Eating meat 
offered to idols presents no practical difficulty in the world 
to-day. But the knowledge of this incident and the Apostle's 
words of inspired wisdom concerning it have not passed away. 
Nor have these words become merely an interesting record of 
an ancient solution to a practical difficulty. Far from it. 
This passage in this ancient letter remains to-day unsurpassed 
as a clear setting forth of an eternal principle, a principle for- 
ever binding upon all moral beings associating with those who 
are weaker, — the principle of abstinence for the sake of others. 
Or, to put it in different and perhaps plainer words, this passage 
teaches that it is a Christian's duty to refrain from the use or 



372 ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. [Fourth Quarter. 

enjoyment of even innocent and lawful things, when such use 
or enjoyment tends to lead a fellow-mortal into sin. This truth 
will not commend itself to those whose chief object in what 
they call religious living is merely "to be saved," for it is set 
forth with no formal " thus saith the Lord," nor is it followed 
by any threatened penalty of "wrath and fiery indignation " in 
case of disobedience. Throughout the discussion Paul appeals 
to no sense of fear, and presents no line of action as a requisite 
of salvation. His severest language merely reminds his readers 
that to neglect this duty is " to sin against a brother," and to 
" sin against Christ." That is, he appeals to their love to their 
brethren and to Christ, and thus builds upon the foundation 
on which, as our Lord declared, "hang all the law and the 
prophets." 

In the complicated relations of life at the present time there 
is continual occasion to exercise this duty of abstinence for the 
sake of others. On every hand are these " weaker brethren," 
men without knowledge, men to whom the influence of other, 
stronger men becomes an occasion for virtue or sin, men whose 
judgment is not clear and true, whose will is not firm and 
steady ; in short, men who have not sufficient intellectual and 
moral stamina to stand alone. They drift. They move in 
masses. They attach themselves to others. Their life is largely 
determined by what others do and say and think. As it was in 
the days of the Corinthian church so it is now, though we may 
hope that the proportion of the strong to the weak has steadily 
increased. Inasmuch as all of us live in the presence of these 
"weaker brethren" and constantly have an influence upon 
their thought and life in very many ways, it is not at all suffi- 
cient for us to ask if a proposed line of conduct be right in 
itself. It is also necessary to ask whether it will have a right 
and helpful influence upon the lives of others ; and, if no moral 
obligation is involved, the answer to this last question must, 
for those who have both knowledge and love ; be decisive. 



tESSON V.] ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. 373 

It would be impossible, as it is undesirable, to enumerate or 
classify the many applications of this principle pertinent at the 
present time, but there are two which are sufficiently promi- 
nent to deserve mention here. The first of these concerns 
the " Temperance Question," the use of alcoholic liquors as 
beverages. Following the same order of reasoning which is 
observed by the Apostle, we may note that there is not neces- 
sarily any moral quality involved in the act of drinking an 
alcoholic beverage. It can be said of it, in some cases at 
least, as Paul said of meat. " Neither if we drink not are we 
the worse ; nor if we drink are we the better." That is to say, 
the act in itself may be entirely innocent. If it be sinful at all 
it must be because of some such reason as that it is a violation 
of the laws of health, a principle which would at times make 
the eating or drinking of anything wrong. On the other hand 
is the fact that the use of alcoholic drinks is the most terrible 
force for evil that the world has ever seen. It is a curse more 
powerful for misery and death than all the wars that have been 
waged since history began. It is possible to construct truthful 
statements showing that by it millions on millions of dollars 
have been wasted, millions on millions of homes hopelessly 
ruined, untold millions of mortals sent down to untimely death, 
millions more made criminals, and millions of innocent victims 
plunged into wretchedness and misery. But although we may 
construct statements of this sort which must appal every 
thoughtful man, it is utterly impossible for any combination 
of statements to describe adequately the enormous evil wrought 
by this habit. The figures pass the limits of human compre- 
hension long before an adequate statement is reached. It is 
impossible for a finite mind to comprehend the full extent of 
this tremendous curse. In view of such unquestioned facts, 
while we may admit that the act of drinking alcoholic liquor is 
in itself a harmless one, must we not say of him who refuses to 
give up the habit, " Through thy knowledge he that is weak 



374 ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. LFourth Quarter. 

perisheth, the brother for whose sake Christ died ; and thus, 
sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience 
when it is weak, ye sin against Christ?" Can the attitude of 
any one who hates evil and loves good be other than that 
expressed in those noble words of Paul, " If meat maketh my 
brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I 
make not my brother to stumble "? 

The other prominent and general occasion for the appli- 
cation of this principle of abstinence for the sake of others is 
found in the matter of amusement a subject closely connected 
with the spiritual life of very many. The question what amuse- 
ments are to be indulged in should be decided in the light of 
the truth taught in this passage. There are very few amuse- 
ments which can be said to be sinful in themselves. Even 
those which have been associated with sin in the minds of 
many Christians for generations seldom necessarily involve' 
anything evil. With very few exceptions they are intrinsically 
harmless, innocent. In the case of any well balanced person, 
of good judgment, firm self-control, and strong will, their use 
and enjoyment is not attended by any harmful result. They 
may be decidedly beneficial. But, as we have already seen, 
this is not enough to decide the matter finally. That consid- 
eration is important, since it lies at the foundation, but it is not 
all. Nothing should be done which is in itself wrong, but not 
every thing is allowable which is in itself good. It is never 
right to neglect the " weaker brethren." Legitimately the first 
test to apply to any amusement is, " Is it right?" But to any 
amusement which successfully meets this test a second is to be 
applied, viz: "Is its influence right?" Many amusements 
which successfully bear the first test fail under the second. 
There are a number of amusements, exceedingly attractive and 
popular, whose whole history shows that their influence is in 
a great majority of instances injurious. They tend to absorb 
thought and attention which belong to more important affairs. 



Wesson V.] ABSTINENCE FOR THE SARE OF OTHERS. 375 

They develop and stimulate unnatural tastes and desires. 
They check spiritual aspirations, and thus retard or destroy 
spiritual life. They establish and strengthen mental and moral 
conditions unfriendly to the best interests of the soul. This is 
seen in the fact that they who indulge in and support them are 
very seldom found among the earnest and zealous servants of 
God. They do not live hearty, wholesome, christian lives. 
They belong to that large class of people who constantly hover 
about the line separating the servants of God from those of the 
devil. A few stalwart souls are able to resist these tendencies 
and maintain their spiritual life, but the many are overcome 
by them, and thus the "liberty of the strong becomes the 
stumbling-block of the weak." In regard to these and all such 
amusements the teaching of the Apostle is clear. They must 
be abandoned. To continue them is inconsistent with duty to 
God and duty to man. 

He who is willing to be controlled not only by the expressed 
and positive commands of Christ, but also by the slightest indi- 
cations of his will and pleasure, will put to his lips no cup 
which contains death for others, nor will he delight himself 
with pleasures which by his example will be made fatal to the 
welfare of many of his fellow-men. Remembering, as it is 
expressed in the fourteenth chapter of Romans, " that it is not 
good to eat flesh, or drink wine, or any thing whereby a brother 
stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak," he will appropriate 
the spirit, if not the words of Paul, and joyfully deny himself 
the use of even lawful things, whenever that enjoyment 
becomes the occasion of stumbling to his fellows. 



lessoi? l/l. f/oue/^ber 5. 



THE RESURRECTION. 

/ Corinthians xv : 12-26. 

By Rev. CHARLES A. REESE, Minneapolis, Minn. 

A FEW months ago an iron bridge was building over the 
Mississippi. From the east bank it advanced across 
the stream, pier by pier, stretching out its girders like 
long arms toward the western bluff. The chasm grew narrower 
by degrees, then disappeared. As we travel backward to 
assure ourselves of the truth of the gospel history, we come to 
the date 300 A. D., beyond which unbelief says we cannot go. 
"The difficulty," it is alleged, "is not to prove that Christ was 
believed to be an historical personage after the fourth century, 
but to bridge over the years between 1 and 300 A. D. You 
cannot carry the history of Christ and the history of the gospel 
over that terrible chasm of three centuries." By his words in 
this chapter Paul puts us in a way to build an iron bridge over 
this gulf of time. The first pier is the fact, not disputed by the 
most hostile, that Paul wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians. 
The second pier is the established date of his writing : A. D. 
57. The third pier is the short space of time between his 
writing and the event to which he bears testimony — less than 
the time between Gettysburg and the present year of grace. 
The fourth pier is his appeal to living witnesses of the risen 
Christ, as we might ask for the story of Gettysburg. We thus see 



Lesson VI.] THE RESURRECTION. 377 

that the gulf is much narrower than is asserted, that the Christ 
of the four gospels was certified to by credible witnesses before 
the year 60. In fact a highway as solid as truth itself has 
been constructed across the alleged abyss. " Nothing stands 
more certain, historically, than that Jesus rose from the dead 
and appeared to his followers." 

The Corinthians had accepted the evidence of the resurrec- 
tion, but had not apprehended the place and value of the 
doctrine. They had given it a local, a personal, or a creedal 
application. These historical piers, "unshaken as the eternal 
hills," did not suggest to them that God had laid the founda- 
tion of a bridge, broad and strong enough for humanity to 
march over to firm faith in all the truths of Christianity. In 
the passage before us the Apostle shows how the resurrection 
unifies all doctrines. Without it other parts of the circle of 
revelation are fragments, isolated, disconnected, unsubstantial. 
He presents the consequences of denying and those of believ- 
ing that Christ has risen. 

He begins with the attempt to harmonize the preaching of 
the resurrection with the notion that there is no resurrection 
from the dead. Paul indignantly rejects such a union of con- 
tradictories. " If there is no resurrection of the dead then is 
Christ not risen." If unbelievers state a universal negative they 
cannot modify it by holding to a positive case of resurrection. 
Either admit the resurrection in principle, or deny the instance 
of Christ's resurrection which falls under that principle. We 
need not spend time in the unprofitable search for the exact 
form of doubt which Paul was combating ; whether or not the 
" some " denied natural immortality as well as the general 
resurrection. Paul is not discussing the subtler doctrine of 
immortality. He is meeting current thought, to the effect that 
the resurrection is scarcely more than a vague figure. 

Then, as now, this truth was refined and spiritualized until it 
was practically denied. Pagan philosophy stood opposed to it. 



37$ THE RESURRECTION, t Fourth Quarter. 

The ancient idea of the opposition of matter to spirit did not 
accord with it. And there was the question which still 
troubles so many : How can it be ? Paul answers the last 
further on. Here he strongly asserts the difference between 
the "saying" of "some" and the preaching of the Apostles. 
A rugged doctrine of Scripture is often toned down to conform 
to human speculation ; but with revelation before us the line 
between the true and the false may be clearly traced. Human 
reason falls into confusion the moment it refuses credence to 
the resurrection. Reason may define the doctrine and test its 
proofs, but it cannot produce any modification of it or substi- 
tute for it. It is idle to admit, as certain Corinthians appear 
to have done, that Christ rose from the dead, unless the 
resurrection of men in general be admitted. The absolute 
identification of Christ here with the body of humanity is 
most comforting. If man's resurrection is a mere figure of 
speech, " then is Christ not risen." 

This necessitates a second step. The Corinthians denying 
the resurrection must regard as empty words all the other 
truths that they had heard Paul zealously proclaim. He had 
urged them to believe on the ground that Christ had proved 
himself the Son of God by rising from the dead. Christ him- 
self had predicted that his resurrection would give validity to 
his teaching and effect to his character and work as the Son of 
God. His qualifications as the Redeemer were conditioned 
upon his victory over death. If Christ was conquered by death, 
the Apostle's arguments, persuasions, promises in Christ's name 
were only sound, signifying nothing. This would afflict Paul 
personally as a preacher, but the hearer would suffer too. " Your 
faith is also vain." As it is a conscious joy to preach divine 
truth, so it is a joy, on suitable evidence, to believe, to add 
truth to truth till it forms a system and becomes in the mind a 
a circle of blazing light, with Christ, the Light of men, as the 
centre. But if the resurrection were denied all this study and 



Iesson VI.] THE RESURRECTION. 379 

acceptance of truth would be like the electric wiring of a 
chandelier when the current has failed. The whole is formal, 
" dead," without the risen Christ to surcharge it. 

Following to its conclusion this assumption of " no resurrec- 
tion," Paul proceeds : " Yea, on that supposition we are found 
false witnesses of God." To one who felt the responsibility of 
preaching as Paul did, it was more than a mistake to teach 
wrongly on this or any subject. It was false witnessing, for- 
bidden by the law hoary with the veneration of centuries. 
However easily other men excuse themselves for superficial 
teaching, Paul sternly held himself to strict honor in proclaim- 
ing the truth. People speak of the apostles as either 
deceived on the subject of the resurrection or wilfully deceiving 
others. Paul asserts that it is perfectly easy, by questioning 
living witnesses, to ascertain what the truth touching the resur- 
rection is. There is no chance for honest self-deception. 
That horn of the dilemma is destroyed by full evidence just at 
hand. Now if he and his associates testify to this cardinal 
doctrine, provided " some " are right in denying that Christ 
has risen, the apostles are not deluded but deliberate deceivers. 
Either they preach the truth on the subject or they are liars. 
The falsehood appears in a specially dreadful light, in that it is 
committed against God, putting the Supreme Being himself in 
a wrong light. Well might one shrink with horror from being 
found a false witness of God. And, as before, the deadly con- 
sequence of the untrue hypothesis does not end with the 
apostles. "Ye are yet in your sins." "If Christ hath not 
been raised your faith is vain." And since faith is vain, all the 
work that Christ is supposed to have accomplished through 
faith is unaccomplished. Unless Christ rose he cannot be the 
Saviour, and the sins of men still rest upon them. 

Those who deny the resurrection are driven on again like the 
wandering Jew. If we are deceived here the lot of the dead 
is as desperate as that of the living. The earthly believer, 



386 THE RESURRECTION. [Fourth Quarter. 

mistaken in the object of his trust, still has his sins upon him ; 
the departed believer, clinging to the same false faith, must be 
receiving the punishment of his sins. A groundless faith can 
save no man. If Christ does not avail, the sinner perishes. 
He is lost like the coin in Christ's parable when it had slipped 
from the neck of its possessor, and like the sheep upon the 
mountains when it had strayed from the shepherd. He has 
less hope than the prodigal son when he was in the far country 
in sin, for he could return, while, if Christ is naught, no " way " 
is open for us to our Father's house. What a fearful thing to 
fall asleep in Jesus, trusting him as the all-sufficient Saviour, 
and just beyond the veil to wake to the sad certainty that our 
sins are still upon us with all their penalty because we were 
mistaken in the object of our faith. If Christ is not master 
over death, " then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ 
have perished." It is, bless God, a supposition that will never 
come true ; but it should arouse us to see how terrible the 
awakening if we die in any false trust, whether in ourselves, the 
world or some kind of sophistry, instead of in the risen Christ. 
One more dreadful consequence is suggested, which brings 
the inspired writer to his limit. " If in this life only we have 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." His assump- 
tion thus far has been that a Christ not risen would be the same 
as any other illusory object of hope. It would be pitiable to 
believe in anything that deceives. How sad is the lot of many 
who, in the realm of the temporal, are trusting in things more 
unsubstantial than dreams ! But more wretched than other 
deceived persons, more miserable even than the lost who never 
cherished faith at all, would be the lot of those who believed 
on Christ, provided the resurrection were discredited. By as 
much as their expectations rose higher than the unbelievers', so 
much deeper and darker would be their misery when the wing 
of hope, paralyzed in the keen light of truth, dropped useless 
and heavy. Christian hope leads a man to let go this world 



Lesson VI.] THE RESURRECTION. 38 1 

for the more goodly and glorious world of the future. If the 
Christian misses what he staked his all for, he loses both worlds, 
one by default, the other by delusion. 

Thus are enumerated and canvassed the dire implications of 
the thesis " No risen Christ," supposing this true. The con- 
siderations adduced bring before us several important lessons. 

I. We should beware of holding contradictory views, made 
up of God's truth and men's mistakes. There are other doc- 
trines and sayings that do not fit together any better than those 
which Paul has been discussing. An unbalanced, inconsistent 
system of belief constantly exposes its holder to the shipwreck 
of faith. Sooner or later some crafty disputant will seize upon 
the false part of your system, and lead you down a logical in- 
cline like this one, away from the cross, the resurrection and 
your hope of a mansion in the Father's house. 

II. We see the fate to which doubt leads. Doubt upon one 
essential point exposes the doubter to a second doubt. Doubts, 
like cormorants, fly in flocks. It is easier to believe the whole 
system of revealed truth than to believe all its propositions but 
one, having doubt upon that one ; for if you deny one point 
you must accept all the consequences of such denial. The 
down grade in this region is easy if you once enter upon it. 
The steps to the abyss of unfaith are just as plain as the steps 
up to the triumph of faith. Eight such steps are noticed in 
to-day's scripture, forming a stairway which lands in blank infi- 
delity. Note these steps so as forever to avoid such a gloomy 
passage-way. They are graves locked never to open, meaning- 
less preaching, empty faith, dishonest witnesses, unforgiven 
sins, hopeless believers dead, still more hopeless ones living. 
God be praised that we can say with Paul : " Now hath Christ 
been raised from the dead." 

III. The resurrection of the human race is involved in that 
of Jesus. Christ is the first fruits of them that sleep. Here is 
a field of waving grain. A portion is ripe earlier than the rest, 



382 THE RESURRECTION. [Fourth Quarter. 

yellow as gold, perfect as wheat ever was. The owner joyfully 
cuts and binds these first sheaves, confidently predicting that a 
rich harvest will follow. He knows that the ripening will pro- 
gress till all the broad acres are harvested, because he is sure 
that seed and soil were the same over all the field. So Christ 
Jesus is but a sheaf of the great human harvest, early ripened. 
He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. If he is raised 
up surely we shall be. We cannot affirm the resurrection of 
Christ and deny that of men. He is so vitally related to us 
that whatever you predicate of his lot after death you predicate 
of ours. Lifted up out of the grave, he will draw all his 
brothers after him. The dead " sleep " only as grain sleeps in 
the ground, soon to rise up where the sun is, aspiring higher 
and higher to greet the skies. Death is called in common 
speech a reaper. He is rather a sower. The angels are the 
reapers ; may they harvest us, not to be burned as tares but as 
good, seed for the heavenly granary. 

The whole harvest follows the first sheaf because the first sheaf 
is the same grain as the rest of the sowing. Christ was man as 
really as Adam was. His resurrection affects men as widely as 
Adam's death did. This is one of the deeps of God's wisdom, 
but its sides are studded with flowers. Out of it grow splendid 
truths : Christ's representativeness of the race, his sinlessness, 
his oneness with us in death, his inherent power to make alive 
all who are in their graves. From the broad fields of the dead 
shall arise a mighty army. Each man shall be in his own 
company. Christ leads. The first division after him will be 
the redeemed, roused by the trumpet which announces his 
second coming. Those who are not Christ's will complete the 
infinite array. Even the rejectors of Christ are to rise through 
him, though refusing the greater gift of salvation. 

IV. The raising of men from their graves is a demonstration 
of Christ's kingship. The demonstration began with his minis- 
try, and will end with the complete subjugation of every enemy 



Lesson VI.] THE RESURRECTION. 383 

to righteousness and to divine authority. "He must reign." 
It is a necessity growing out of the fitness of things. Before 
his universal power, organized and unorganized opposition 
shall bow ; personal and physical resistance shall cease ; open 
and private hostility shall vanish. As a proof that the crucified 
and risen Christ has established his specific reign, a survey of 
the fields of death's former dominion shall reveal not one unde- 
spoiled sepulchre or one unopened grave. When the archangel 
shall have declared " there is no more death," perfect authority 
will be in Christ's hands, and the long battle with sin and death 
will have been won. Then, in exercise of rulership over him- 
self, greatest of all kingship, Christ shall deliver up the kingdom 
to God, even the Father. The crowning of his work with suc- 
cess leaves nothing more for authority to contend with. The 
office of king expires when all subjects have learned self- 
government. Christ's establishment of righteousness in the 
hearts of men is itself a completion of the work which God 
gave him to do. " The fear of the Lord is swallowed up in the 
love of the Father." So we ascend with the Apostle to a con- 
summation of Christ's glory, the boundary of human thought, 
where imagination fades into eternity. 

The theme of to-day has been called the Sphinx of God's 
word. The Sphinx, though you fail to solve its riddle, is a 
fact. So these great truths are none the less truths though 
mysterious. They are put with this chapter, which has been 
the artery of life to millions of souls, as the Sphinx is stationed 
by the Nile. "A hundred difficulties," says J. H. Newman, 
" do not make one doubt." When the light of "the day of 
Jesus Christ " falls upon this Sphinx it will open its stony lips 
and speak so that the universe shall hear them the glories of 
the Son of God. 



lessor? l/ll. p/ov/e^ber 12, 



THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. 

7/ Corinthians, viii: 1-12. 

By Rev. CLARK M. BRINK, Newark, N. J. 

THE people of Palestine are suffering from famine. The 
christian church at Jerusalem shares the common dis- 
tress. Paul, touched with compassion, importunes the 
Gentile churches to contribute for their relief. In a letter to 
the church at Corinth he has taken occasion to present the 
matter and to give explicit directions for making the offering. 
In a second letter he urges the Corinthians to complete their 
contribution and advances reasons for making it a large one. 

This incident brings before us the entire question of chris- 
tian liberality. Vital to a right understanding of this question 
are certain truths that I desire briefly to emphasize. 

I. LIBERALITY IS A CHRISTIAN DUTY. 

If a soul is a branch of the true vine, the fruit of liberality 
will inevitably appear. It is not a matter of choice. Sin is 
selfishness. The great mission of Christianity is to destroy 
selfishness. When, therefore, a man professes to be a Chris- 
tian and yet cherishes a penurious disposition, we deny the 
genuineness of his conversion. There is one circle in which 
the parsimonious man cannot sit, — the christian church. His 
name may be on the church roll; but he is not in the church. 



tfiSSON VII. ] TtfE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. 38$ 

Spirituality and stinginess are mutually exclusive. The gospel 
and parsimony cannot dominate the same heart. When one 
is enthroned the other must be dethroned. A man says he is 
a Christian, very well ! What does he mean by the assertion ? 
Does he mean that he professes to be a Christian for the sake 
of what he can get out of religion, claiming all privileges but 
recognising no obligations? Simply this? Then what right 
has he to bear the name of Christ ? To be sure, salvation is a 
free gift. It cannot be purchased with money ; but unless one 
is willing to give of his money, we may be certain that the free 
gift has not come to him. The life of Christ in the heart is 
sure to loosen the grip on the pocket-book. A man does not 
love God at all, unless he loves him to the last dollar. 

A Christian is not to be a barrel, into which water is poured 
to stagnate, to be drawn thence, insipid and lifeless, only 
through a rusty faucet, that gives forth a creaking protest 
every time it is turned ; he is to be, rather, a fountain, into 
which the waters of life flow with a benediction and from 
which they leap with a song, to carry refreshment and gladness 
to others. Christians need to cultivate the grace of liberality. 
They should practice giving according to their means, not 
according to their meanness. The christian virtues cannot 
thrive on a diet of niggardliness. It is only " the liberal soul 
that shall be made fat," and " he that watereth " is the one who 
"shall be watered also himself." 

The need of emphasizing this duty did not perish with that 
generation. In these afternoon hours of our wonderful cen- 
tury, when the high tides of life sweep and surge around us 
with such terrific force ; when great fortunes are accumulated ; 
when multitudes are falling down to worship the great god 
Mammon who rules this modern Babylon ; there is danger that 
even christian men will become so absorbed by the feverish 
struggle for wealth as to grow sordid and grasping. There is 
still many a Shylock — and I fear he sometimes pretends to be 

25 



386 THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. [Fourth Quarter. 

pious and joins the Church — who will not fail to demand his 
" pound of flesh " nor to mourn for his " ducats " if he happen 
to lose any of them. To guard against this spirit and subdue 
it altogether we need to cultivate the opposite virtue. 

II. CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY IS BASED ON DEFINITE PRINCIPLES. 

The word "principles" implies, at the outset, that giving is 
not, in itself, a virtue. " Though I bestow all my goods to 
feed the poor, .... and have not love, it profiteth me 
nothing." We may go further, and say that indiscriminate and 
large giving to individuals may be a curse and almost a crime, 
ruinous to his confidence in human nature on the part of the 
giver, and degrading to the character of the recipient, promot- 
ing shiftlessness and destroying self-respect. That some one 
asks you to give is not a sufficient reason why you should give. 
To be poor is not necessarily a virtue, or to be rich a crime. 
And should the rich man give until he, too, shall become poor, 
that fact alone would possess no merit. . 

Again, the basis of true liberality is not impulse. Too many 
Christians, even of those who give largely, are spasmodic in 
their giving. They give, not according to a well-considered 
plan, but as controlled by their uncertain feelings. 

It is a method without method. In it is no satisfaction, and 
upon it can be placed no dependence. It is just about as 
rational, as would be the attempt to obtain a liberal education 
by ignoring systematic and persistent study, and by superficially 
reading whatever "happened" to come in one's way, whenever 
one "happened to feel" like reading. By such giving, the 
chief end of christian beneficence, as an act of worship and a 
means of developing character, is entirely lost. To be gov- 
erned by feeling is as objectionable in this matter as it is in 
the exercise of any other christian duty. 

Better than this hysterical way of giving, spasmodic and 



Lesson V1L] THE GRACE OP LIBERALITY. 387 

impulsive, is the system of Paul. With all our nineteenth-cen- 
tury wisdom we have not improved on his method. And this 
is largely because it is a method, and because it embodies the 
best conclusions of " sanctified common sense." 

In his earlier letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle gives 
specific directions for making the offering for the relief of the 
famine-stricken Christians at Jerusalem. " "Upon the first day 
of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God 
hath prospered him.". Here is the whole matter in a nutshell. 

The first thing we notice about it is that it is universal in its 
application. "Everyone." Upon this thought we need not 
tarry. We have already seen that liberality is a duty, from 
which no christian man can be exempt. 

We notice further that this system demands regularity and 
frequency. The offerings are to be laid by " every week," not 
once a month, not quarterly, not yearly, still less when the 
mood is right. Who can suggest a more common-sense way 
of raising money? It fits the wage- earner as well as the 
millionaire, and implies that those in moderate circumstances 
no less truly than the wealthy are to share in the responsibili- 
ties and privileges of sustaining christian enterprises. As the 
majority of wage- earners receive their pay weekly, what 
method so easy, so likely to secure large results, or so helpful 
to the giver, as for each one, when pay day comes, to deposit 
a fixed portion of his receipts in the Lord's treasury? How, 
moreover, can each so certainly be kept in touch with the var- 
ious objects of christian beneficence ? One cannot forget or 
be indifferent to that for the sustenance of which he frequently 
and regularly contributes. 

Still further, this plan requires equity in its operation. " Let 
every one .... as God hath prospered him." And 
again : " If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted ac- 
cording to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath 
not." According to ability, no less, no more ! That is the 



388 THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. [Fourth Quarter. 

rule. The rich man, much ; the poor man, a little ; the pau- 
per, nothing. But each one according to all the circum- 
stances. God would not unduly burden his people. There is 
a limit to what even the rich man should be asked to give. 

For, while emphasizing the duty of liberality, we must know 
that it is possible to give more than one ought. To be sure, 
there may come extraordinary conditions, when a man must give 
to his last dollar. God has a right to say : " The silver and the 
gold are mine," and to demand his own to the uttermost, But 
until these extraordinary exigencies arise, God requires a wise 
as well as a generous use of money. To some he has given 
responsibilities different from if not greater than those bestowed 
on others. The relative demands of these various responsi- 
bilities must be weighed before a right decision can be reached 
as to the amount to be given for what we ordinarily term benev- 
olence. For example, a man is responsible for the education 
of his children as well as for the conversion of the heathen. 
If, therefore, he give so largely for missions as to deprive his 
children of the opportunities they have a right to demand, he is 
not giving " according to his ability " as God requires, but more 
than his ability. It is not a virtue to give for the purpose of 
converting the heathen into christians, if thereby he allow his 
own children to be converted into heathen. 

Again, true liberality requires wisdom in its exercise. It does 
not bid all men of equal means to give equally for benevolence. 
God's moral laws harmonize with his economic laws. Mr. A. 
may be rich, keeping a thousand men in his service. He 
might give a million dollars to some charity and still be rich ; 
but if he should, by the act, withdraw so much capital from 
productive channels as seriously to cripple his business and 
thus materially diminish his subsequent power to give, or as to 
compel the discharge of a hundred workmen, or necessitate a 
reduction of ten per cent, in the wages of a thousand, the gift 
is obviously larger than he ought then to make. As things are, 



Lesson VII.] THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. 389 

he is morally responsible for keeping that regiment of men 
employed. In meeting this responsibility he is really doing a 
work of beneficence that should be reckoned as a part of his 
obligation, whether he or the world look upon it in that light 
or not. On the other hand, if his wealth be all invested in 
interest-bearing stocks or in rented houses, his " ability " will 
be greatly enhanced, and consequently his responsibility. It is 
admitted that Mr. A. is not likely to step forward and introduce 
himself as the rich man who is about to withdraw so much 
capital from productive channels as to cripple his business and 
injure labor, for the sake of giving to some charity. The case 
is purely hypothetical, yet it will serve to illustrate one of the 
basal principles of the New Testament plan of beneficence, 
namely : that you can not absolutely determine how much one 
ought to give, solely on the basis of his possessions or income. 
Finally, christian giving is to be voluntary. It is to be an 
offering, not a tax. I know that for saying this I may be 
branded as a heretic. Many good men assert that the Mosaic 
requirement of one-tenth of the income has passed over into 
the gospel dispensation. But I am not convinced that the 
assertion is well-founded. I do not object to it because of the 
proportion. Many men ought, doubtless, to give more than a 
tenth, while some may properly give less. The chief objection 
rests in the fact that the theory annuls a fundamental principle 
of Christianity — the voluntary element. A prime distinction 
between the old dispensation and the new is that the old was a 
system of legal requirements, while the new is a system of free 
choice. The old drove, the new draws ; the old rested on the 
love of law, the other exalts the law of love ; the old thundered 
from Sinai, the new pleads from Calvary. Christ's death broke 
the bondage of the law, and introduced the liberty of the gospel. 
No exception was made in the case of benevolent offerings. 
The Mosaic exaction of one- tenth went with the rest. And it 
is well ; otherwise, giving would become mere formalism, bur- 



390 THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. [Third Quarter. 

densome and lifeless, instead of, as intended, an act of love 
and worship. That the law was abolished, Paul plainly teaches 
in this second letter to the Corinthians : " Every man according 
as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give ; not grudgingly 
or of necessity." So he would have us bring our gifts ; not 
because giving, as such, is a virtue, or from impulse ; but to 
bring them as a universal duty, regularly, according to ability, 
wisely, voluntarily, and lay them at Christ's feet, because love 
prompts us to " bring an offering, and come into his courts." 

III. CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY IS BENEFICENT IN ITS RESULTS. 

To the giver it signifies the development of his spiritual 
nature. For we must remember that the christian virtues are 
not to be segregated one from another. You cannot elevate or 
degrade one, without exerting a corresponding influence upon 
others. When a Christian practices true liberality, thus lifting 
his giving up to the high plane of free and joyful service and 
worship, he is, likewise, elevating and imparting culture to all 
the finer qualities of his soul. The exercise of this grace 
quickens his conscience and his judgment, by compelling him 
to study his obligations, and to give on the basis of duty, as 
measured by the relative claims of those obligations on the one 
hand, and by his ability on the other. It promotes love for his 
fellow-men and enlarges his sense of responsibility for them, by 
giving him a new and personal interest in the christian enter- 
prises which his benefactions help sustain. By lifting him 
above the narrow valley of selfishness, it broadens his horizon, 
so that he may catch the vision of remote need, as well as of 
that on his own street. 

The Germans have a motto : " Over the mountains are 
people also." The practice of true liberality puts the spirit of 
this proverb into the Christian's heart. It gives him a convic- 
tion of the brotherhood of man, and makes him realize that there 
are other people for whom Christ died beyond the mountains 



Lesson VII.1 THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY. 39 1 

that shut in his own dwelling-place. So it teaches him to look 
at life in a large way, as sweeping from the past into the future 
in one great whole, in which each individual and each moment of 
time possesses vital relations to all the race and to all time. 

To the church this system, if adopted, is, likewise, a blessing. 
It promotes unity and equalizes burdens. The poor are not 
oppressed by it, nor can the rich enjoy a monopoly of its 
advantages. All have a share in the burden and the blessing. 
It brings in more money than to proceed planlessly or by any 
other plan. Should it be generally adopted, how the Lord's 
work would prosper ! The thought of such a condition brings 
a vision of church debts abolished, of pastors' salaries promptly 
paid, of church work strengthened and extended, and of the 
missionary societies enabled to press forward to make new con- 
quests and subdue new territory for the King. 

Since liberality is a christian duty, based on definite and 
simple principles, and beneficent in its results to the individual 
and to the church, may we not hope that there will come a 
time when this grace will be universally exemplified? 

To the world at large, the results of its general adoption 
would be equally glorious. Should all Christians put it into 
operation to-day, the work of conquering the world for Christ 
would receive a tremendous impulse. The missionary hosts 
thus put in the field would be invincible. 

' ' Like a mighty army, 
Marching as for war," 

they would make such progress, that, by the close of this cen- 
tury, the missionary drum-beat would be heard around the 
world. With the sun- rise of the new century would appear at 
least the faint dawn of that day for which we wait : 

1 ' When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, 
But sinit with freer light shall slowly melt 
In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
And light shall spread and man be liker man 
Through all the season of the Golden Year," 



lessoi? l/lll. |fovember 19. 



IMITATION OF CHRIST. 

Ephesians iv : 20-32. 

By Rkv. C. R. HENDERSON, D. D., Detroit, Mich. 

THE greatest devotional work of the christian centuries 
was written by a Romanist monk, and bears the title, 
"The Imitation of Christ." Four gospel writers have 
left on record as many pictures of Jesus, differing but harmoni- 
ous. This enables us to know what Jesus himself taught as the 
vital law of his religion : " Follow me." This phrase sums 
up all the forces and rules and graces of our holy faith. 

I. The divine principle and source of christian life is thus 
declared : " Even as God in Christ forgave you." There is 
a natural and instinctive bond of sympathy between most of the 
higher animals, especially those of a gregarious nature. Even 
a tigress exhibits toward her young an affection which hints at 
the moral bond of humanity. As one mind created all con- 
scious beings it would be strange if there were not some com- 
mon elements between the lower and the higher which might 
serve as parables for the spirit of man. And that more con- 
scious and purposed morality which is manifested even where 
gospel light does not shine, is connected with a feeling of kin 
ship. The ancient tribe recognized certain rights as belonging 
to those who are of one race and who worship one deity. Sav- 
ages who scruple not to rob and kill members of other tribes 



Lesson VIII.] IMITATION OF CHRIST. 393 

will hold sacred the welfare of their kindred. But when God 
revealed himself incarnate in Christ the deeper meaning of all 
unconscious and narrow sympathies become apparent. In 
God the Father all men are of one kindred. The historical 
critic may doubt or deny that all men are descendents by 
physical lines from one ancestor, as Adam. The devout man 
of science, Agassiz, thought there must have been several cen- 
tres of human life at the beginning. But while christian men 
of science may think the common origin of man from one 
human ancestor to be questionable, the common relation to 
God the Father cannot be denied. Here is a truth that does 
not wait upon the slow process of historical investigation. 
From this incarnation of God in Christ there is a transition of 
love. By the Mediator, Son of man and Son of God, we 
receive forgiveness. The same outflow of mercy which forgives, 
regenerates. That eternal love of God in Christ is the cause 
of the new man " which after God hath been created in right- 
eousness and holiness of truth." 

This revelation is the foundation of christian ethics. Duty 
as viewed by a Christian is more than an animal instinct of 
sympathy or a local feeling of clan fellowship. It is a distinct 
recognition of universal brotherhood in God. Its argument 
is this : " Be ye holy, for I am holy," spoken by God. And 
no other argument addressed to self-interest, to conscience, to 
aspiration for noble life, to gratitude or hope could be so pow- 
erful and convincing as this. The argument becomes a motive. 
" I beseech you by the mercies of God." "The love of Christ 
constraineth us." The impulse to act uprightly and kindly 
starts with the personal influence of the Lord, the Image of the 
Father. As the body of plant or animal is formed by its vital 
principle more than by its environment or food, so the chief 
forming law of our conduct is this " life in Christ Jesus." As 
the source of duty in Christianity is the highest, purest and 
divinest, so the morality that grows out of it is superior to all 



394 IMITATION OF CHRIST. [Fourth Quarter. 

others. The moral philosophy and the civilization of christian- 
ized cummunities both manifest the presence of the super 
natural christian energy. The inherited tribal morality of 
earlier times based the right to hold black men slave property 
on a denial of kinship. These words of the eminent politician, 
Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, shock and startle us now by their 
awful blasphemy. " I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscien- 
tious belief that the negro was made his equal and hence his 
brother, but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my 
equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any kin to 
me whatever." The mental and moral confusion of that last 
sentence would be impossible now in a youth ; not long ago it 
was regarded by many as political wisdom. Even yet the 
pride of wealth and the envy of poverty and the strife of 
industrial war blind men to the fact of their kinship. Only in 
a genuine realization of such kinship as a divine fact can 
society ever come to be at one. 

II. The Apostle expects from this christian source of good- 
ness, this influence of the divine image, and the accompanying 
energy of the regenerating spirit, christian dispositions. " Be 
ye kind one to another." In our language the word kindness 
is closely related to the word kinship. And kinship is given 
here as a reason for veracity and for all holy graces : " For we 
are members one of another." In God the Creator, in Christ 
the Redeemer, in the Holy Spirit, the regenerating agent, we are 
one by a bond of faith and love. 

Would we know the breadth and compass of the required 
kindness? See how great: "Even as God." Here the dis- 
ciple merely repeats what the Master had said : " He maketh 
his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and the unjust." "While we were yet sinners Christ 
died for us." Let us not look for "worthy" objects of our 
charity, but even seek the unworthy to transform them. Here 
is no pinched morality of the tribe or sect or province. It is 



Lesson VIII.] IMITATION OF CHRIST. 395 

wide as the arch of heaven and deep as divine pity. " Be ye 
perfect even as your father who is in heaven is perfect." 

And this kindness is to reach the degree of "tenderness." 
Jesus was not stoical. He was not a frosty philosopher who 
could stand unmoved and tearless by the sepulchre of a friend 
that had often shown him hospitality (John xi. 35). Let 
others boast of a wisdom that makes their hearts marble to 
misery and sin ; Jesus wept over Jerusalem. This sensitive- 
ness of heart is contrasted with that blindness and hardening 
which results from gross and selfish sin, as well as from a false 
doctrine of God (v. 18). Burns, in giving advice to a young 
friend, selects for special remark this effect of sensual vice : 
" It hardens all within, and petrifies the feeling." The cruelty 
and lust of Nero were not connected by mere accident. As 
fire and oil make hotter fire by mingling, so vice and cruelty 
react upon each other to augment the fury of destruction in 
each. Kindness reaches its climax in that disposition which 
demands the most self-denying, Christ-like love, — forgiveness. 
It is with this word Jesus sums up his doctrine of prayer (Mat. 
vi. 14). "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly 
Father will also forgive you." The gift for the very altar of 
God must wait until the last trace of malice and revenge has 
been washed away in a sincere effort at reconciliation with an 
estranged brother. If there is any other grace that is lovely 
and of good report it will arise out of kindness. As all the 
branches and limbs and leaves of a tree grow from its root and 
trunk, so all forms of goodness will spring from moral union by 
faith with God in Christ. 

III. But the Apostle shows in this passage that it is not 
enough to have good dispositions hidden in the heart. God 
became incarnate in Christ, and the divine disposition must 
become embodied in outward form and institution. Music is 
not fully music so long as it remains an unheard dream of 
melody in the mind of the artist. It must find material instru- 



396 IMITATION OF CHRIST. [Fourth Quarter. 

ment and voice. The architect is never sure that his plan is 
beautiful and conformed to the laws of strength until it is 
embodied in the frozen music of marble and metal. Now the 
order and institutions of society are the divine ordinances 
(Rom. xiii : 1-7) for manifesting and cultivating right disposi- 
tions. In this chapter, the writer selects several of the outward 
social forms and invests them with the sanctity of christian 
motives and ideals. In doing this he does not attempt a com- 
plete code of laws for all times, but shows the way to apply 
Christianity to life everywhere and always. Here are germinal 
notions of a christian science of society to whose genial expansion 
all modern knowledge and experience may be made tributary. 

Human life is made sacred. While the command, " Do no 
murder," is implied rather than expressed, it certainly is involved 
in the words: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. 

. . . Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor 
and railing, be put away from you, with all malice." As the 
very steps of a noble temple are made of shining marble, pro- 
tected with walls and towers, and adorned with carved work, 
so the approaches to the sanctuary of human life are defended 
and beautified. Jesus had taught that to hate a brother in the 
heart was to kill. The Apostle does not seem to think it 
necessary to forbid Christians to kill each other. But he knew 
too well that malicious thoughts lead to cruel words and these 
to mortal blows. 

Human chastity is protected in the same way (v. 19). 

Marriage is the source of life and must be kept pure. Lust 
and greed are its foes. The safeguard of the family is this law 
of kindness which keeps unlawful thoughts at a distance and 
refuses to enslave or be enslaved. 

Human property, as the material basis of life, is made sacred 
by the kindness of Christ. That love of God infused into the 
soul, would make the origin of property holy. " Let him that 
stole, steal no more ; but rather let him labor, working with his 



Lesson VIII.] IMITATION OF CHRIST. 397 

hands the thing that is good." We are not only to work, but 
to work for ends, for uses. The thief is often very industrious. 
The burglar busily turns night into day. The dishonest clerk, 
the speculator in the savings of widows and orphans, the railroad 
wrecker, the saloon keeper, the distiller are often very indus- 
trious men. They rise early and sit up late to cheat and injure 
other men. We are bound by christian law to work at some- 
thing honorable and socially useful. Paul set the example 
himself. He was a tent-maker. 

Property must be kept sacred in its uses, when once acquired 
by upright means : " that he may have to give to him that hath 
need." This is the highest end of business and agriculture 
and manufacture, to give. The needy are God's altar. Chris- 
tian character finds its supreme test, in our mercantile age, in 
the use of money. As a man gives so is he. We talk of the 
"sacredness" of property. Honest acquisition and humane 
use make it "sacred." But when it is gained by injustice 
and employed in wasteful extravagance or in oppression, it is 
then, as Proudhon said, " robbery." 

Human speech is made sacred by Christian kindness. The 
bond of social fraternity requires entire veracity. "Putting 
away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor ; for 
we are members one of another." " It is mean to lie to your 
kindred; but then all men are brothers." So the Sweet Voice 
said. Language is the symbolic bond of spiritual fellowship ; 
he who lies cuts that bond and isolates men. Domestic, social, 
industrial, commercial welfare is built on veracity. Speech is 
the current coin of social interchange of thought and feeling and 
purposes. To debase it with alloy of deception, exaggeration, 
obscenity, profanity, is a crime condemned by the law of love. 

In the same spirit a Christian will guard with justice and 
kindness the good name of his brothers. This is that jewel 
whose loss makes one poor indeed. " Thou shalt not bear false 
witness against thy neighbor." So said the old covenant law. 
The new covenant teaches us that all men are our neighbors. 



398 IMITATION OF CHRIST. [Fourth Quarter. 

Whatever new conditions may arise in the course of history, 
whatever may be the relations of business or of state, this 
method of christian charity will suffice to solve the problems 
and point the way. An agnostic or atheistic sociology must 
ever fail to comprehend and compass all the elementary forces 
of humanity, and must ever come short of suggesting all the 
available agencies of redemption and progress. 

Christian kindness is manifested in outward conduct, but it 
is also affected by conduct, according to the law of reciprocity 
between act and inward state. As the flying shuttle weaves 
warp and woof in cloth, so the actions of life weave together 
right dispositions and worthy conduct into one strong fabric of 
character. The root is supposed to feed the leaves, but it is 
often forgotten that leaves nourish the roots. A life of piety 
leads men to deeds of justice and mercy, but deeds of good- 
ness send the man of God back to his meditations and prayers 
with a truer insight and a deeper purpose of holiness. Prayer, 
meditation and temptation form the theologian. The eye shows 
the hand the food, and the stomach nourishes both hand and 
eye. The interplay of these external and internal elements of 
christian life is well shown in the passage before us for study. 
The world has no need of an atheistic morality, for that omits 
the highest ideals, the most sacred duties, and the most power- 
ful motives. Nor do we need a mere unmoral religiosity, a 
sentiment of dependence and gratitude. Such are without cor- 
responding devotion to duty. The supreme need is a religious, 
a christian righteousness. A righteousness apart from God is a 
cut flower stuck in a vase, and it soon withers. An emotional 
worship that expends itself in shouting, without purity, honesty, 
veracity, is a cloud that sweeps before the wind over a parched 
soil and yields no fruitful showers. We must seek to attain 
earnestness of faith in the invisible together with an intelligent 
apprehension of the right ways of the holy Lord. 



lessen? \)L. ffovember 26. 



THE CHRISTIAN HOMK. 

Colossians Hi: 12-25. 

By Rev. C. C. BROWN, Sumter, S- C. 

THE ideas that present themselves in these verses may be 
grouped as : 

I. Directions for a godly life, vv. 12-17. 

II. Directions for a godly home, vv. 18 ; iv : 1. 

The two sets of reflections are not sharply contrasted, but the 
first leads up to the second. 

I. Directions for a godly life. 

" Put on therefore," the lesson begins. The costume of a 
saint is here described, made up of compassion, kindness, 
humility, meekness, long-suffering, " and over all the silken sash 
of love." The Christian could surely have no more fitting 
uniform than this. 

"Forbearing one another." Forbearance is a wonderful 
virtue, rarely appreciated or possessed. It has reference to our 
treatment of those from whom we have a right to expect some- 
thing, but in whom we have been disappointed. The forbear- 
ing man is he who knows how to surrender at times and for 
good purposes even his rights. Forbearance is a greater virtue 
than forgiveness. We are to forgive when one repents ; we 
ought often to forbear whether there is repentance or not, so 
passing over the infirmities of our fellows. 

"And forgiving each other." To forgive is to forth-give, to 



40d THE CHRISTIAN HOME. [Fourth Quarter. 

send out clean from you — to dismiss from mind and heart. 
Revenge is mean and little ; forgiveness is divine. To win a 
fight with sword and gun is not of necessity great, but to sub- 
due your enemy after God's way, using the one weapon of 
forgiveness, is the greatest of victories. Forgiveness is a dis- 
tinctively christian virtue. A Roman considered himself happy 
who, on his death-bed, could say, in reviewing his past life, 
that no man had done more good to his friends or more mis- 
chief to his foes. Our Lord's teachings subverted and sup- 
planted such a creed, and gave to the world the doctrine of 
the skies. Alas that so few of us have really gotten hold of 
his idea. A great deal that is taken for forgiveness is just 
a passing over of offenses without forgiving them, with no 
removal of the bad feeling from the heart. Hence it is that 
there is so much bitterness among men. 

A traveler saw, in the south of France, a row of beggars sit- 
ting on the side of a bridge, day by day, winter and summer, 
showing sores on their arms and legs. These sores were never 
allowed to heal, but were kept continually raw, in order to 
excite compassion and obtain alms. The man with only an 
inflamed knee would envy him whose whole leg was sore. 
Some persons nurse their grievances as these beggars their 
sores. They seem proud of them, loving to expose what they 
call their wrongs. Thus life is kept in continual ferment. The 
doctrine of the Bible is, you must forgive. To what extent? 
one asks. " Even as the Lord forgave you," is the answer. 

"Teaching and admonishing one another," sets forth the 
idea of mutual helpfulness. This is not to be an ex cathedra 
impartation of instruction, but rather an interchange of spirit- 
ual help, in a purely religious spirit, as a religious exercise, by 
the use of "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Song, 
jest and wine formed the pastime of the ancients. Paul urges 
that we seize upon and use the best of these, the song, as a 
means of helping each other to heaven. The counsel of the 



Lesson IX.] THE CHRISTIAN HOME. 401 

Apostle is that we use a regular service of song for our spiritual 
benefit, and the fact that he names three sorts of songs indi- 
cates that he did not expect us to confine ourselves to Psalms 
alone. 

Song is a wonderful agency. Our song makers largely make 
our theology. Some modern doctrines found in our hymns 
are rather foreign to the Bible. But God has surely approved 
the service of song. It should be used in such a way as to 
help not only those who sing but as well such as only listen. 
No merely mechanical or perfunctory service ought it to be, 
but performed "with grace in our hearts unto the Lord " — not 
that you must sing with great skill or precision, with exact time 
or pleasing rythm ; but that the graces of the heart, and all its 
affections that remind of God, must be brought into play. 
Then singing becomes service, and heaven comes down to 
earth. 

It is worthy of notice that great revivals of song have always 
accompanied great revivals of religion. To these revivals we 
owe many of the mediaeval hymns, the hymns of Luther, of 
Watts and of Wesley, and in later days the hymns of Bliss, 
Sankey and McGranahan. The history of hymns and of the 
victories they have won over men's hearts makes up a library 
of volumes. There are chords of music whose mystic tender- 
ness defies all explanation. Our dearest memories are apt to 
cluster around some song. When President Garfield lay dying, 
he was permitted one day, feeling a little better, to sit at the 
window. His wife was in the next room, faith, hope, love and 
prayer all mingled in her christian heart. Softly and plain- 
tively she began, " Guide me, O thou great Jehovah ! " As the 
words floated into the chamber, the sick president turned and 
said, " Quick ! Open the door a little ! " After listening a few 
moments, Mr. Garfield exclaimed, as the tears coursed down 
his sunken cheeks, "Glorious, isn't it?" 

Dr. Pentecost tells of a boy who came to one of the New 

26 



402 THE CHRISTIAN HOME. [Fourth Quarter. 

York city missionaries, holding out a dirty and well-worn bit of 
printed paper, and said, " Please, sir, father sent me to get a 
clean paper like that." Taking it from his hand, the missionary 
found it to be a bill with the hymn, "Just as I am," printed on 
it. Asked where he got it and why he wanted a clean copy, 
the boy answered, "We found it in sister's pocket after she 
died, and she used to sing it all the time when she was sick, 
and she loved it so much that father wanted to get a clean one 
to put in a frame to hang up." O the hymns ! the hymns ! 
Let us fill the world with them, singing them with true grace 
in our hearts, that we may praise God, teaching and admonish- 
ing men that they may turn to him and be saved. 

II. Directions for a godly home. 

Parents, children and servants are mentioned in these admo- 
nitions, the weaker, the subordinate, being in each case placed 
first. Wife comes before husband, child before parent, servant 
before master. 

" Wife " means "weaver." Before the erection of our great 
factories, all clothing was woven at home by the wife. The 
girls spun the thread, hence were called spinsters. No doubt 
woman's position in the world has greatly changed since the 
Apostle's day, and will change more yet. So full is the air of 
declamation about woman's rights, some think a preacher out 
of his senses who dares to speak of women's "subjection." 
Yet the right kind of woman never hesitates to be in subjection 
to the right kind of a man ; for it is no base subjection that the 
Apostle has in mind, but a sort of loving and voluntary bondage 
like the subjection of the Church to her heavenly Lord. The 
wife is subject, not because she has a master, but because her 
heart has found a rest. She takes a second place out of defer- 
ence to her heart's idol, as every worshipper would fain be 
lower than the object worshipped. This relation places upon 
the husband a most solemn trust. In him we ought to find 
" pure religion breathing household laws." 



Lesson IX.] THE CHRISTIAN HOME. 403 

Wrong as the Bible may appear to some in this, it cannot be 
denied that God, fate, government or custom has placed im- 
mense power in the hands of the husband and father in every 
house. He is expected to be its head. Every family requires a 
centre of authority, and men are so constituted as, commonly, 
to play this part better than women could. Women themselves 
nearly always defend this position. Those among them who are 
masculine and love to rule, find their severest critics among 
their own sisters. Nor does the subjection required involve 
any loss of power on the whole. The surest way for woman to 
gain her rights and to exercise an absolute and queenly reign, 
is lovingly to fill her God-ordained place as a help meet. Love 
conquers all things. 

But husbands on their part have responsibilities. They 
must love their wives " and be not bitter against them." This 
is an important point. " Husband " means " house-band." 
The husband is the agent who keeps the house together. The 
word here used for "love " is a very strong one. It expresses 
the highest and most spiritual affection. Where the wife finds 
love like this she can endure much. The old adage, "when 
poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window," 
is base and false. 

Note, Paul does not say, " Wives, love your husbands." 
Failure in this respect on the wife's side is comparatively rare, 
but the man, often absent and pre- occupied, is apt to fall into 
some disloyalty of heart. Other society takes up his time ; he 
is led into amusements intended only for men ; the wife loses 
her place as the confidante and sharer of his secrets ; and 
home becomes to him only a sort of selfish convenience. 
Then he grows irritable, chafing under every domestic care, 
making no allowance for any human infirmity, magnifying 
even- trifling mistake, and at last ignoring the wife's patient 
affection and untiring efforts to please. Bachelor though he 
was, the Apostle shows wonderful insight when he adds, " Be 



404 THE CHRISTIAN HOME. [Fourth Quarter. 

not bitter against them." How many there are who, while 
cross, churlish and spiteful at home, still pass for saints abroad, 
and who seem to have forgotten, or never to have known, 
that bitterness toward any one at home is not compatible with 
christian love ! 

Children next come in for an admonition. In this age of 
insubordination, when children are the masters of the home, it 
is well for us to hear again the precepts of the old time religion 
concerning parental rule, the command that children obey 
their parents in all things, and the assurance that this is well- 
pleasing to the Lord. Many a child has "come to himself" 
in the course of years, when it was too late, to discover that 
life's great mistake was made in despising the warnings and 
teachings of those at home who loved him and knew what was 
best for him. Not once in a thousand times do fathers or 
mothers teach children to go wrong. The testimony of mul- 
titudes who have won high places in the world is that they 
were greatly helped upward by obeying the voices of love at 
home. Thos. H. Benton, a United States Senator for many 
years, once said : " My mother asked me never to use tobacco, 
and I have never touched it from that day to this. She asked 
me never to gamble, and I never learned to gamble. When I 
was seven years old, she asked me not to drink. I made a 
resolution of total abstinence. That resolution I have never 
broken. And now, whatsoever honor I may have gained, I 
owe it to my mother." That such a man should become a 
senator is no wonder. The world has no place too high for 
such. 

But the Apostle knows full well that children's failure is not 
always due to their own depravity. He therefore warns par- 
ents, and especially fathers, not needlessly to provoke children, 
so as to discourage them. In the hands of some persons 
authority is always out of place. Especially is this so in the 
case of a father who uses his parental power only to censure 



Lesson IX.] THE CHRISTIAN HOME. 465 

and abuse. Even parents are sometimes mean and exacting 
just because they have no one over them. Thus the child 
comes to regard his father as a tyrant, and loses heart. I have 
seen many children cowed and broken in spirit because of abuse ; 
whose sense of justice had been violated until they wondered if 
there were such a thing as justice, and who, at last, became 
sneaks and sulks, without will or purpose to seek good things. 
Dr. Bushnell has given us some wise words on this subject, 
showing parents how children's spirits are broken. 1. By too 
much prohibition, — a sort of monotonous " Don't," that does 
not stop with ten words, like the words of Sinai, but keeps up 
an everlasting thunder. 2. By unfeeling and absolute govern- 
ment. If a christian father is felt to be a tyrant, he will seem 
to his child to be a tyrant in God's name, and that will be 
enough to create a sullen prejudice against all sacred things. 
3. By an over-exacting manner and a difficulty of being 
pleased. Children love approbation, and are disappointed 
when they fail in their meritorious endeavors. 4. By holding 
displeasure too long, as if to make the child think the parent 
entertains a grudge, thus turning the child's repentance into a 
stubborn aversion. 5. By hasty and false accusation. When 
children are put under the ban of dishonor, they are very likely 
to show that they are no better than they are taken to be. 6. 
By keeping them in a continual torment of suppression. Only 
to be in a room with an over-anxious person is enough to 
make one unhappy. What, then, is the woe put upon a hapless 
little one who is shut up day by day to the fearing look and 
deprecating whine and supercautionary keeping of a nervously 
anxious mother. 7. By giving them tests of character that 
are inappropriate to their age, such as requiring the boy to 
retire to pray because he has given way to a fit of passion. 
The rule destroys itself which says a child must not play at all 
on Sunday, while the father interests himself, even in the 
church, with his secular concerns. 



406 THE CHRISTIAN HOME. [Fourth Quarter. 

The Apostle's attention now naturally turns to servants or 
slaves, who are to " obey in all things them that are their mas- 
ters according to the flesh." The Bible does not teach the 
doctrine of race-superiority ; but history shows that, in nearly 
all ages and lands, some men have been masters and some 
slaves. Servants not legal slaves are not seldom slaves in effect. 
Often the most abject slaves are found among people who are 
the most blatant about human freedom. It being true that 
some human beings are to be slaves or servants for others, the 
Bible, doing ever the wise thing, seeks to show these how to 
make the best out of their circumstances. The master's will, 
says the Apostle to the slave, is to be your will, and you are to 
obey heartily, not only when watched, or when doing such 
things as will catch and please the master's eye, but in all 
things. In doing your duty, try to please both your earthly 
and your heavenly master. Your faithfulness God will reward. 
He will ultimately right all your wrongs. If your master wrongs 
you, leave vengeance with God. For a slave to be an heir was 
a paradox, but here is promise of an inheritance even to slaves 
provided they serve in the spirit of Christ. 

As parents are under obligation to children, so are masters 
to such as serve them. " Masters, render unto your servants 
that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Mas- 
ter in heaven." This is the Apostle's noble, manly plea for 
truth, justice and mercy to every toiler and bondsman under 
the sun. The fact that one is a slave does not give another 
any right to abuse him. The master has his rights but he has 
his duties also. He is dealing with human beings, not with 
machines. The iron laws of political and domestic economy 
are not safe guides here. They may teach how to get rich, 
though gospel rules will aid even this, but will never show how 
to get to heaven. " Just dealing and fairness must rule in the 
relations of master and man, if they are to be on a moral and 
righteous footing. He must not take a hard advantage of his 



Wesson IX.] THE CHRISTIAN HOME. 407 

servant's necessity, or allow their dealings together to degen- 
erate into a mere struggle between capital and labor for every 
inch of vantage. Cruel greed that grasps at immediate gain at 
whatever cost of toil and poverty to others, and that ' grinds 
the faces of the poor,' may enrich the individual, but in the 
long run will prove fatal. Political economy itself teaches that 
ill-paid labor is the most expensive and wasteful. The man 
who has want and fear gnawing at his heart cannot be a good 
workman, even if he be an honest one. Christ's golden rule of 
equity is the only safe, as it is the only righteous, basis for the 
dealing of man with man, of class with class, of nation with 
nation in the world's great polity. 'As ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise.' " 

Combine, now, all these virtues which the Apostle urges, and 
what a home have we not — the wife and children dutiful, the 
husband gentle, the father tender, the master considerate, the 
servants willing and honestly anxious to please — a veritable 
heaven on earth ! Yet precisely that is the christian ideal of 
domestic society, an ideal realized just so fast and far as the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus spreads. 



lessor? ^. December 3. 



GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. 

James i : 16-27. 

By Rev. President B. L. WHITMAN, Watervieee, Me. 

THIS Epistle war, written to persons already Christians, 
whose character was defective, whose conduct wrong. It 
quite subordinates doctrine, never discussing it out of any 
speculative interest, but abounds in precepts of a practical 
nature. It names Christ only twice, though there is in it nothing 
at variance with the most exalted conception of his character 
and work. Christ is, indeed, the source and subject of its 
thought. No book of the New Testament is more pervaded 
with his moral teaching. Ever since this Epistle was written 
men have found it in spirit if not in word, a true echo of the 
Sermon on the Mount. It is the message of an intensely 
earnest and clear-headed man who, not neglecting christian 
doctrine, exalts life as against all mere theory and speculation. 
In the section forming the lesson of to-day are set before us 
two great and rich thoughts, God's goodness and man's con- 
sequent obligations, the one having to do rather with doctrine, 
the other more conversant about duty. 



I. GOD HELPS BUT DOES NOT TEMPT. 

The section is introduced by discourse concerning tempta- 
tion. Running through that introductory matter and the first 



tESSON X.j GRATEFUL OfeEDIENCE. 409 

few verses with which we have particularly to do is a line of 
instruction and exhortation in which we find a common mis- 
conception corrected. 

Outward and inward trials then pressed hard upon the Jewish- 
christian flock. They seem to have mistaken both the purpose 
of their suffering and the source of the evils from which some 
of them were in danger. They overlooked the revealing work 
of trial. They failed to see how affliction is adapted to draw 
out the graces of life. They saw in free moral agency only the 
possibility of sin, disregarding the fact that through freedom 
alone are virtue and piety possible, and that freedom was given 
for virtue and piety, not for sin. They thus missed the most 
important of all the truth concerning trial, that men are tested 
not to allure them to sin but to lead them to triumph over sin 
and so become morally strong. 

They still more seriously mistook the source of moral evil. 
They did what men are forever doing in their attempt to find 
excuse for wrong actions. They said, "This temptation is of 
God. As he is the author of it he must assume the responsi- 
bility for it." James tells them that such a suggestion is from 
the devil. Sin is not of God. Permission is not compulsion. 
Moral evil is due to voluntary disorder in the being in whom 
it is found. The strength of temptation is not from without 
but from within. The responsible agent is neither God nor 
the devil, but the man's own self. When a man goes wrong it 
is his own lust that has led him astray. We must not give this 
word "lust" too narrow a meaning. It does not imply mere 
sensuality, as common use might suggest. Any ungoverned 
desire is lust ; any propensity however innocent in itself, when 
it has gotten the upper hand. We are to see to it that every 
inclination of our nature is kept perfectly under the control of 
reason and religion. " Evil concupiscence," says a Jewish 
writer, " is at the beginning like the thread of a spider's web ; 
afterwards it is like a cart rope." But at every step vicious 



4IO GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. [Fourth Quarter. 

desire is a man's own belonging, not another's. This is what 
James alleges and maintains. He clears God of all responsi- 
bility in the matter. He repudiates utterly the principle of 
of fatalism. He sweeps away his brethren's misconception and 
assures them that when they sin they alone are to blame. 

A better thought is then given, for it is never enough merely 
to refute error. Positive truth must be put in its place. What 
does come from God — and he is continually active in our lives 
— is the good impulses and suggestions which assist us to over- 
come when we are tempted. What James says is, in effect, 
that " Good gifts and no other come from God ; good gifts 
come from God and [ultimately] from no other." For the 
idea of " good gift " James has a double expression, one form 
suggesting a thing not proceeding from man himself, the other 
emphasizing the gratuity of the gift as a free present. In both 
senses the gift is declared good. 

The writer gives us to understand that this is precisely the 
kind of dealing which we should expect from God, as indicated, 
first, by his nature. The word evil has no meaning as applied to 
God's acts or character. Used in such a connection it intro- 
duces a contradiction of thought. Moral evil has in him no 
part or lot. He is not even tempted to it. What is more, his 
nature is such that he cannot be tempted to it. Evil has no 
hold on him whatever. How then can we think of God as 
dealing with men with any purpose to lead them wrong? 

The absurdity of such a thought is further evinced by view- 
ing God's work in the physical world. We should have to 
search far for a better description of God than that given here, 
" the Father of lights." The very words are opposed to the 
suggestion of evil. Darkness is everywhere a hint of evil. 
Here the light of the heavenly bodies is regarded as simply a 
reflection of the essential character of God. The author of 
light can have no fellowship with evil, and his gifts to men will 
be like himself. 



Iesson X.j GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. 4ll 

His work in spiritual creation is additional confirmation of 
this. His redemptive activity is peculiarly significant, as it 
reveals God in a sphere peculiarly his own. It is at bottom a 
work resting immediately on the divine will. It declares at 
once the author, the nature, the means, and the purpose of 
regeneration, and all these are alike good. Regeneration is 
simply God's crowning work and gift. From the goodness of 
this know the goodness of all that he does for us. 

Such, then, is our lesson's first helpful thought. God is 
good. So far from wishing to lead men into evil, he is doing 
all he can to bring them through spiritual generation into good- 
ness like his own. 

Our scripture goes on to set before us also : 

II. MAN S DUTY IN VIEW OF GOD S GOODNESS. 

Regeneration is the crowning proof of the goodness of God. 
Attention is at once fixed by the writer upon the means blessed 
to that end. The gift of life comes to the believer from the 
grace of God through the gospel preached or read. " The new 
life is conceived of as having its source in God, but as brought 
into conscious being by the word of truth," " word " here 
meaning not " the Scriptures " of the Old Testament or the 
New. but rather the spirit or essence of all revelation. And, 
important as this christian truth is in the communication of the 
new life, it is no less important in the maintenance of that life. 
Continuance in the word means salvation. What duties in this 
matter do the claims of gratitude and safety lay upon the 
believer? They are many, but James specially emphasizes two. 

Ready hearing of the truth is one of these. Maliciousness, 
stubbornness, opposition are out of place against any utter- 
ance of the word of truth. Even in earthly schooling hard- 
ness and reserve prevent the learner from getting the best that 
his teacher has to offer. A hypocritical attitude in a pupil is 
fatal to progress. 



412 



GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. 



[Fourth Quarter. 



It is suggestive that the admonition to receive the word with 
meekness is addressed to believers. Christian men and women 
are to take heed how they hear. Upon them above others is 
laid the duty of teachableness. Those early believers were 
saved not for themselves only but as a kind of first-fruits, the 
beginning of an organic kingdom of righteousness. They were 
saved in consequence of God's love for the race. From that 
moment they were charged with a mission to the race. The 
same is true of all who are ever saved. As part of the fruit 
of Christ's work and as the pledge of a greater work, we stand 
in the place of the disciples when the Lord expounded to them 
the parable of the sower and bade them hear carefully because 
they were to be in their turn teachers. The best knowledge of 
divine truth that we can get is the least we ought to have. 
Whether through teaching, preaching or private effort, we are 
to make the word our own. An unread Bible is useless. 
Hasty, careless recognition of the truth hardens the soul. 

Let a man just casually glance at his image in a mirror and 
then go away ; how soon he loses all but the most general im- 
pression of what he is like. If the figure is suggestive now, 
how much more so when the mirror was only the polished 
metal with which James was familiar. The mirror shows one 
what otherwise remains unseen. It is intended to give detailed 
knowledge of one's appearance, especially of blemishes, and 
to show what improvements are desirable. This suggests a 
right use of God's word. A man is to look into it deeply, 
bend close over it, searching long and earnestly. He is to keep 
doing this. He will thus find out what manner of man he is. 
At the same time he will learn a good deal more. He will see 
where betterment is possible. He will learn to his profit how 
he may advance in the divine likeness and become in larger 
measure what he has already begun to be. Only the foolish 
man will be slow to use or careless in hearing the word of life. 

Faithful doing of the word is of equal importance. This is 



Lesson X.I GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. 413 

in fact the really vital matter. It begins to be so as soon as 
hearing begins. Evil in the heart is a bar to learning. So the 
hearer must at once lay aside all his evil thoughts and pur- 
poses. And when the word has been received, it profits only as 
it is used. Indolent contemplation avails nothing. The mere 
hearer, however satisfied he may feel that he is getting all he 
needs, is simply cheating himself. He deludes and robs his 
own soul. We need to beware of this, because religious truth 
has an immense speculative interest. One must get beyond a 
passion for mere hearing or idle contemplation. He must press 
learning to its issue in life. We are to know in order to do. 

The believer's course in the discharge of the obligation thus 
propounded is clear enough. He is to follow the word as the 
law of his life. What is law? Speaking generally, law is a rule 
which must be observed in order to bring about a certain end 
or certain ends. That expresses exactly what is meant when 
we speak of the word as the law of life. It is the rule which 
we are to carry out that we may obtain the blessedness promised 
by God. Like every other law it is an expression of will. The 
word expresses the will of God. The New Testament is at 
one with the Old in this. They confront man with the same 
demand of submission. But the new is more perfect than the 
old. The Old was good, for its time the best available or 
applicable. But it had always upon it the stamp of immaturity. 
It was a code, a register of details, of prescriptions and ordi- 
nances, which inevitably failed by reason of men's weakness. 
In the New the same will is declared, but with what a difference ! 
The Old discouraged men and added to their bondage by 
requiring obedience to an apparently infinite number of details, 
with comparatively little stress upon the spirit in which they 
were to be kept. The New requires obedience none the less, 
but gives life and ability therefor by revealing the unity and 
inspiring rationality of the moral law as identical with love. 
Love fulfils the law, itself fixing the code, the details thereof, 



414 GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. [Fourth Quarter. 

by bending reason to its service for this purpose. Love being 
in the heart, obedience to God's law is rational, voluntary, and 
unconstrained. 

This is why the law as set forth by Christ is "perfect." It is 
complete for the life whose conduct it directs and it fully and 
directly attains its object. It is also the law of liberty, because 
it does not burden with a yoke and enslave with enactments, 
but simply expresses what, by virtue of regeneration, it is the 
soul's tendency to do spontaneously. Thus the word appeals 
to the believer in two senses. It declares what he must do in 
order to fulfil the divine will ; it declares what he is doing so 
far as he is in Christ. Hence the paradox of every day life, 
doing the will of God as the natural thing and ever submitting 
to the will of God anew. The law by which we accomplish this 
is perfect. Perfection of knowledge and obedience on our part 
should answer to the perfection of the law as divinely given. 

However, even the believer, having still a double nature and 
so subject to carnal impulses, is exhorted to hold himself to 
practical righteousness. The man who does the work is the 
man who gets the blessing. The word of truth genuinely lodged 
in a man is no mere word, but a vital power, creative and life- 
giving, manifesting itself in all holy ways. Life shaped by the 
word is a life of activity. This is the point where many fail. 
They mistake desire for attainment. Knowledge is counted 
sufficient. Sometimes the mistake is unconsciously made. 
Oftener consciousness of mistake is betrayed by half-confession 
that there is in us something wrong, or by efforts to appear 
more than one is. When a man is satisfied with profession, or, 
on the other hand, goes out of his way to seem religious, it is a 
sure sign that there is weakness either in his heart or in his 
head. All such James rebukes and corrects. Mere appearance 
is nothing. Talking is vain. Self-deception cannot save. That 
which saves is regeneration by the will of God through the 
word. Man's part is to believe and do. 



Lesson X.] GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. 415 

The " doing " required is partly within ourselves and partly 
without. True religion involves both an unspotted life and 
practical service for mankind. The world is godless. Its 
spirit is evil. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the 
vain glory of life are like the world. They must be left to it. 
Sin is to be banished from desire, word, and work. The life is 
to be made clean and kept clean. 

But there is an outward requirement. It takes an active 
hand as well as a holy heart to do all that religion commands. 
Life has its outer as well as its inner mission. The unspotted 
life is to bring something to pass in the world. Right effort is 
to be the evidence of right disposition. The direction effort 
ought specially to take is indicated by the specification "father- 
less and widows." These words convey no exhaustive definition, 
but they do suggest a very prominent class of the righteous 
man's duties. Fatherless and widows stand for all the needy 
and sorrowing ones in the world. There is no better test of 
one's real state of heart, as graceless or in grace, than one's 
attitude toward the woes of the unfortunate. A pious spirit is 
sure to be a philanthropic spirit. What pure religion requires 
is not gush and tears over the unfortunate, but actual interven- 
tion, toil, generosity on their behalf, such as is indicated by 
"visiting" them. Off-hand and desultory benevolence is also 
not the thing. Intended kindness of that order is often a 
curse. " Visit " them ; ascertain what they need, whether 
counsel, management, or alms, and minister accordingly. 

It is true that according to the christian idea, the service of 
God consists not in any given specific acts, but in the offering 
of the whole life to him. But every man must remember that 
only through specific acts can the reality of the offering be 
judged. So we come to the thought of James that performance 
must pass judgment upon profession and that faith shows itself 
faith only as it finds issue in works. 

He greatly mistakes who thinks he reads in all this a polemic 



4 1 6 GRATEFUL OBEDIENCE. [Fourth Quarter. 

against Paul's doctrine of justification by faith. We know 
from Peter that Paul's idea was early misunderstood, to the 
detriment of many. James doubtless intended by his Epistle 
to aid in correcting this abuse. But he will interpret Paul, not 
contradict him. Any one who has had practical experience of 
faith will not find it hard to see how James and Paul agree. 
Each has his own problem. James corrects the old Jewish 
error of trusting to a knowledge of the law without effort to do 
the law. But he everywhere assumes regeneration by the will 
of God as a thing indispensable to the production of good 
works, so that the doing of the law is simply the working out 
of that faith on the part of the Christian, of which Paul makes 
so much. Paul deals with those who cannot or will not break 
away from the habit of trusting forms and ordinances, as if 
salvation were to be earned and not gained through the grace 
of God. To these he says, "By grace have ye been saved 
through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God." 
But Paul everywhere insists that the faith which saves is a living 
faith, doing as well as believing. Nowhere does Scripture hint 
that a mere intellectual faith is by itself of the slightest avail 
toward salvation. The problems of the two inspired writers 
are different, but when worked out the results are the same. 
The proof of spirit is life. 

The message of James greatly deserves heeding. This is no 
" Epistle of straw," as so famous and good a man as Luther 
foolishly called it. Christian life is no mere matter of words, 
but a strenuous effort to do the will of God. It is forever the 
glory of the gospel that it makes men free, but our freedom is 
freedom for service. The law of our life is a law of liberty, 
but its obligations are more imperative than any decree of 
bondage. We must be diligent to accomplish good. Only 
so can we do God's will. Only so can we exhibit a love respond- 
ing to God's love. Only so can we render grateful obedience. 



(essoQ )t\. December id, 



THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. 
/ Peter i: 3-12. 

By Rkv. Professor WM. N. CLARKE, D.D., Hamilton, N. Y. 

WHOEVER desires to breathe the air of the Delectable 
Mountains, let him come hither. This whole passage 
is vocal with praise to God and aglow with joy. The 
high things of God are here. God himself is here, Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit. The trinity of graces is here, faith, hope and 
love. The heavenly glory is here, incorruptible, undefiled, 
unfading. Heaven on earth is here, a present salvation, joy 
that conquers sorrow, gladness unspeakable in him whom the 
eye sees not but whom the heart loves well. How great a gift 
of God it is that men are able to attain to these sober ecstasies 
of reasonable joy, and sing such strains of praise as this to God 
who has begotten us again unto a living hope ! 

1. The living hope is first the theme of rejoicing and of 
gratitude. Unto a living hope, a hope that throbs with divine 
vitality, God, the Father of Jesus Christ, has begotten us again. 
By a new birth it has become ours, even by that birth in which 
we became his full and genuine children ; and so the hope is 
the filial hope, the expectation of possessing that which 
belongs to us as sons in God's own family. It is the hope of 
obtaining our inheritance, the hope of coming to our own. 
For we are heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. 



4i$ 



THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. [Fourth Quarter 



The First-born has many brethren, and to each of them as a 
child of God belongs the heavenly inheritance. To that inherit- 
ance therefore we lift up our eyes in living hope. 

What a vision greets us as we look ! The heavenly portion 
that we call our own is incorruptible, undefiled, and one that 
fadeth not away. Imperishable, no changes can destroy it ; 
spotless, no marks of sin or shame are upon it ; unfading, 
always divinely bright, its glory is never dimmed, its blessed- 
ness knows no alternations. " Incorruptible, undefiled and that 
fadeth not away : " how divinely such words about the unseen 
future sound, in this corruptible, defiled and fading world ! 
How the vision shines, above the brightness of the sun ! How 
it cheers our hearts as we lift our eyes to its glory ! Yet this is 
no vision of mere fancy, no dream of the impossible : this is a 
glimpse of our inheritance as sons of God. What hope sees is 
the real. God has all this for his children. It has not still to 
be created, for it exists unseen ; it is awaiting us, reserved in 
heaven, ready to be revealed in the last time. Our heavenly 
portion has not to be provided, but only to be manifested. 
When our eyes are closed, and opened, we shall behold it as it is. 

But shall we, even we ? Is it indeed for us ? Shall we come 
thither? We know ourselves to be far from it as yet, and the 
uncertainties of the way seem great. How shall we know that it 
is possible for us to attain to the heavenly inheritance which so 
delights and fascinates our hope ? These two are the agencies 
by which we are to be brought thither, power, and faith ; power 
on God's part, and faith on ours. By the power of God, 
made effective for our help by means of faith in us appropriat- 
ing it, we are guarded from the perils through which we must 
pass, until we come to that full salvation which is reserved in 
heaven and ready to be revealed. Is it enough? The 
strength is God's part, the trust is ours. He guards us all our 
journey through, and we, like children whom their father is 
I - ] ; 3 ] lent, ^[(j] ac ctpt his guardianship and loyally com- 



Lesson XI.] THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. 419 

mit ourselves to his keeping. We know that he desires to 
bring us home, far more surely than that we desire to come 
thither. Is it enough? Is not he almighty? Is a hope that 
rests on such assurances from him a lifeless and decaying 
hope? No, this is a living hope, strong, vital, deathlessly 
alive. Because he lives, it lives also. It binds us by a link of 
living cerlainty to that holy future to which our best desires 
look forward, but upon which, otherwise, humanity has no cer- 
tain hold. If we are born children of God whom he is guard- 
ing through power of his and faith of ours until the crowning- 
day, surely we have a living hope, glowing with divine reality. 

Blessed be God for this, for his is indeed the glory. It was 
of his great mercy that he wrought all this grace in us, and him 
will we praise forever. And we will gratefully reckon this living 
hope as among the christian gifts, for it came to us by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Christ came, and 
wakened spiritual hope in those who knew him, but when he 
was slain, hope was slain with him. What hour so dark as that 
in which the hope that he had nourished was turned to desola- 
tion and despair? But he arose from among the dead, and 
showed himself to his friends as one who could be trusted, not 
in this world only, but beyond this world ; and thus he quick- 
ened again the hope that had died with him and been buried 
iji his grave. Thenceforth men knew that they had a living 
Saviour, whose power not only took hold upon their inmost 
souls, but reached over to the unseen eternity ; and thenceforth 
it was possible for the hope that was built on him to be a living 
hope, imperishable, undefiled and fadeless as the inheritance to 
which it looked. Yes, his living triumph brought into this earthly 
life the possession of the heavenly realities. It not only gave 
assurance that the city of our hope is the city that hath founda- 
tions, but it further justified our highest praise by bringing in, 
even here and now, a present salvation. 

2. The present salvation is next the theme of gratitude. 



420 THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. [Fourth Quarter. 

Hope is not the whole. Faith already receives the fulfilment 
of its aspiration and its hope, and we possess as a present real- 
ity, incomplete, indeed, but genuine, the salvation of our souls. 
Salvation is not wholly a matter of the coming periods, ready 
to be revealed in the last time. Faith brings it near ; nor is it 
merely seen as if it were here already, — it is here already. We 
possess it. Its transforming power is already manifested. The 
substance of heaven is upon the earth, and the divine inheri- 
tance is possessed here and now. 

The present salvation is manifested in the glow of such a joy 
as this world knows nothing of. This is a world of sorrow ; 
but when the Master went away he said to his friends, " I will 
see you again, and your sorrow shall be turned into joy." In 
the fulfilment of that omnipotent word we have our present 
salvation. Trouble is not to us what it was. Once we simply 
knew that we were suffering, that manifold trials were heaped 
upon us, that grief was our inalienable portion. But now we 
see these things in altered light. Now we know that it is but 
for a little while that we are put to grief through manifold trials, 
and this not without necessity. The conflict will soon be ended, 
and while it lasts it is not without its purpose, which is not 
hidden from us while we endure. Faith is our one thing need- 
ful, for by means of it God's power guards us to the end ; and 
by the manifold trials our faith is tested, strengthened and 
approved. Men try gold by fire, and count exceeding precious 
the metal that is thus proved genuine ; but the proving of our 
faith is in reality more precious far than the gold that men so 
highly prize. When we stand before our Lord and Master 
Jesus Christ, and the full fruit of this testing is apparent, the 
attestation of our faith will stand out glorious as bringing honor, 
praise and glory to our Lord. Our troubles thus confirm our 
faith and glorify our Saviour ; and viewing them thus we glory 
in our tribulations also, aud are helped by them, not hindered, 
in holding our living hope of the pure inheritance. 



Lesson XI.] THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. 42 1 

Herein is indeed salvation even now. Christ has transformed 
us, when he has transformed our relation to our troubles. Only 
men of a new citizenship can see their troubles in this light. 
Thus to be lifted above the depression of our pains by a holy 
hope is to be saved out of the very heart of this world's evil. 

But the present salvation is manifested even more richly in 
the new joy of love. Jesus Christ in whose resurrection our 
new hope was born, Jesus Christ whom we are to meet in the 
day of his revelation, Jesus Christ we love. It is true that we 
have never seen him, but not less therefore do we love him. We 
do not need to see him in order to love him, for we believe on 
him. We do not merely believe in him, as one who really 
exists : we believe on him, trusting soul and welfare to his 
gracious keeping; we believe on him as the Saviour whose 
power extends through all realms and ages, and who is able to 
keep forever that which we commit to his hands. Believing on 
him thus, we love him. Why should we not? He is worthy. 
He is the living justification of our living hope : for since such 
a friend as Jesus ever lives to save us, no hope that rests on 
him need ever tremble into disappointment. He will accom- 
plish the work that he has begun, and fulfil to us the highest 
expectation that he has awakened. Such a friend we love, and 
our love toward him gladdens us with a joy already like the joy 
that is glorified in heaven. We do not merely rejoice because 
we have been delivered from the burden of our troubles ; even 
more do we rejoice because we have a Saviour who is worthy 
of all our love, who bears the weight of all our faith, and who 
justifies our highest and divinest hope. Thus our joy is greater 
than we can express. It is joy unspeakable, and full of glory. 
Thus to receive, though incompletely, that end for which our 
faith is waiting, and to know our souls saved because we love 
the unseen Friend who saves us, is indeed to have unutterable 
reason for rejoicing, and to glow with a joy that transcends all 
songs of praise, Our heavenly inheritance has begun to come 



422 



THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. [Fourth Quarter. 



to us already, and our hope has begun to be fulfilled. Salvation 
is not a matter of time and of worlds, but of experience and 

reality. 

"Farewell, ye phantoms, day and year ; 
Eternity is round us here, 

When, Lord, we dwell in thee." 

No wonder that we would gladly call the attention of all 
creatures to so great an experience. We call upon all that is 
within us to bless the holy name of our Saviour God, and we 
invite all beings to rejoice with us in our high blessedness. We 
do not wonder when we learn that converging interest gathers 
to our little field of heaven on earth, for it is meet and right 
that all should acknowledge grace so great and joy so unspeak- 
able. 

3. The converging interest next arrests our notice. From 
before, and from above, the eyes of God's own have turned 
hither. Prophets have forseen this grace, and angels look 
wondering on, desiring to gaze more deeply into it. We have 
a sense of eyes upon us, and we joyfully consent, because they 
are the eyes of the holy, converging upon the wonders of grace. 

Prophets, enlightened in former days, saw the gift of salva- 
tion coming to bless the world, but it still hung in dim outline 
before their eyes, and only by thoughtful study could they at 
all make clear to themselves the form of the future blessing. 
They discerned the coming Christ, the messenger of grace. 
They made out in the distance the sufferings that were appointed 
unto him, the way of pain through which he was destined to 
pass, and they saw the dawn, the day after darkness, the glories 
that must follow the sufferings of Christ. All this was shown 
them by that Spirit whom we know as the Spirit of Christ, tes- 
tifying beforehand what God would do. But when ? Was all 
this to come soon? Was it to bless their own age? This they 
sought to know, longing for speedy fulfilment of so divine a 
possibility. But they were taught by him who enlightened 



Lesson XI.] THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. 423 

them that it was not for them or for their time. For us of 
later ages was this gift to be. The things that our heralds of 
grace, helped by the heavenly Spirit, have caused to be known 
as household words to us, they dimly knew as future ; hoping, 
wondering and rejoicing, therefore, they bent their gaze toward 
this blessing which is now our portion, intent in thought upon 
Christ, the sufferings, the glories and the saving grace. 

The prophets are not alone in their attention. Higher intel- 
ligences, wise with a heavenly wisdom, watch with living interest 
this introduction upon earth of a heavenly inheritance. Into 
these things angels desire to look, and we do not wonder. 
This is a world that holy beings cannot keep their eyes away 
from. The purer the spirit, the surer the hitherward look : for 
in this raising of men from sin to the undefiled inheritance, 
this actual springing-up of God's holy life in us his children, 
this planting of earth with heaven, the holy ones must all be 
interested. We know that Christ our Saviour watches it with 
joy, satisfied with this fruit of his pains, and that God our 
Father never loses sight of his children, in whom his own like- 
ness is growing. Therefore we are not surprised if we are told 
that all holy interest converges upon our christian life. We 
are content to feel that we are compassed about with a cloud 
of witnesses. We are glad the heavens care. We are willing 
to live our life in the sight, and sing our songs in the hearing, 
of all who love our God, and to be his witnesses before all 
creatures, illustrating the glorious work of the grace which is 
in Christ Jesus. Watch us, ye holy ones, and cheer us with 
your eyes, and help us to keep our hearts intent upon loving 
Christ and being transformed into the likeness of our undefiled 
inheritance. 

And now unto God let us sing our psalm of praise. Blessed, 
our hearts cry within us, blessed be the Lord God of grace, 
who is pleased for his mercy's sake to make new creatures of 
sinful men. Blessed be he who wakens within us the spirit of 



424 THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. [Fourth Quarter. 

faith, that we may see him and trust him. Blessed be he who 
breathes into our life the breath of love, so that we become 
loving souls. Blessed be he who gives to us the strength and 
glory of a living hope. Thanks be to God, who found us living 
unto this world and lifeless unto the world above, and who 
made us alive together with Christ unto the realities that are 
incorruptible, undefiled, unfading. To him who has removed 
the home of our souls from this fading world to his own eternal 
habitation ; to him who is transforming us into souls that care 
for holiness ; to him who enables us to live the life of heaven 
upon earthly ground, and is making his very heaven in us here ; 
to him in Jesus Christ, and to Jesus Christ in him, be gratitude, 
and trust, and love, and loyalty, to-day, and to-morrow, and 
all the days of the eternal life. Amen. 



lessoi} /I I. December 17. 



THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. 

Revelation i: g-20. 

By Rev. J. V. GARTON, Cambridge, Mass. 

TWO false and antipodal methods of interpretation have 
been applied to the book of Revelation with harmful 
results. The first is the prophetic, regarding the Apoca- 
lypse as prophecy pure and simple. The Saviour is supposed 
to have revealed to John an outline history of the Church and 
the world until the end of time. Some even believe that the 
chief events are given, in figurative form, with chronological 
accuracy. Interpreters of this class have made the book a 
theological skirmishing ground, prejudicing the minds of honest 
Christians and leading them to regard it as a repository of 
enigmas. The second school of interpreters is the rationalistic. 
These go to the other extreme. They eliminate the prophetic 
element and regard the treatise as contemporary history. 

A third system of interpreting the Apocalypse combines what 
is true in each of the foregoing and yields the most satisfactory 
results. We may designate it as the historic-prophetic. Ac- 
cording to this method the Book of Revelation is viewed as 
history, dealing with passing events. The aim of the book is 
practical ; it is a message for the times, comforting and inspir- 
ing outraged and persecuted Christians. But the Book of 
Revelation is not only historic, it is prophetic as well. It 
rooted itself in its age but sent its branches into future ages. 



426 



THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. [Fourth Quarter. 



It is history ; this makes it a real book. It is prophecy ; this 
renders it a continuously living book. To ignore either of these 
elements gives a false and narrow view of this scripture. 

Let us now proceed to study the lesson of the day. It 
comprises an introduction to the epistles addressed to the 
seven churches of Asia. This initial revelation assumes the 
form of a vision, and it is our purpose to discover the contents 
and the signification of this. 



I. PREPARATION FOR THE VISION. 

The manner in which John introduces himself is noteworthy, 
and in striking similarity to that repeatedly used in the Book 
of Daniel. In his Epistles John addresses those to whom he 
wrote as " little children." Here he addresses them as breth- 
ren. In the Epistles he speaks with apostolic authority; now 
he is simply " a fellow partaker in their tribulation and kingdom 
and endurance in Jesus." In common with his brethren he 
is beneath the harrow of prosecution, enduring hardness as a 
good soldier of Jesus Christ. It is fitting that he should refer 
to himself as a brother rather than as a father. 

" The island called Patmos" was a rugged, rocky crest, little 
more than a huge boulder projecting out of the water. It was 
situated in the ^Egean Sea near the coast, south of Ephesus, 
and is about thirty Roman miles in circumference. In John's 
time it was probably uninhabited except by prisoners and their 
keepers. A cave is still shown where John is said to have 
received this revelation. How came John here ? Some allege 
that it was not as an exile but as an Apostle engaged in chris- 
tian work. Others believe that he visited Patmos by special 
divine order, for the specific purpose of receiving this import- 
ant message. We prefer the traditional and generally accepted 
view, that John was a prisoner, a religious exile. The express- 
ion in the ninth verse indicates that it was a season of persecu- 
tion, and that John was suffering with his brethren. He was 



Lesson XII.] THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. 427 

there, he says, " because of," " in consequence of the word of 
God and the testimony of Jesus." The most natural meaning 
of this is that he was banished because of his love for the gospel. 
John was in a state of spiritual ecstacy, induced by divine 
influence. Connection with surrounding objects through the 
senses seems to have been more or less completely suspended, 
and some special connection with the invisible world established. 
This occurred on the Lord's day. The evident reference here 
is to the first day of the week, kept by the christian Church as 
the festival of the Lord's resurrection. The evident familiarity 
of this expression indicates that " The Lord's Day " was a com- 
mon designation of the christian day of worship and would be 
readily understood. So circumstanced and so prepared, the 
favored servant of God hears a great voice : the real voice of 
a real person, yet a person belonging to that spiritual world 
beyond the sphere of the senses and present only to one who, 
like John, was in the spirit. In loudness and clearness the 
voice resembled a trumpet. John is informed that he is to be 
the recipient of a divine message which he is to transcribe and 
remit to the churches of Asia. Only seven specific churches 
are mentioned, but there were other churches in the vicinity 
and they were, no doubt, all included. The number seven was 
selected, as is so often the case in the Book of Revelation, to 
express perfection, universality, completeness. The number of 
churches chosen here is representative, not exhaustive. Ephe- 
sus being the home of John, and the field of his labors, as well 
as the chief city of the province, heads the list. 

II. THE VISION. 

Having heard the trumpet-toned voice behind him, John 
turns to see from whom it comes, when a magnificent and 
extraordinary spectacle appears, the first feature of which con- 
sists in seven golden lamp-stands. The seven-branched light- 
holders in the tabernacle and temple from which the imagery 



428 THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. [Fourth Quarter. 

is here derived, was for holding lamps. Reference is not made 
to the light but to the light-holders. The candelabrum of the 
Jewish sanctuary, described in Exodus and referred to in Zecha- 
riah iv. 2, consisted of a single seven-branched lamp-stand. 
In John's vision seven candelabra appear, each having seven 
branches or light-holders, — and these we are informed repre- 
sented christian churches. In the Jewish system there is 
organic unity, one complex lamp-stand ; in the christian sys- 
tem there is organic multiplicity, seven complex lamp-stands. 
Each is perfect in itself, while all are unified by a common life 
and a single purpose. 

In the midst of the golden lamp-stands John saw a striking 
figure, "like unto the Son of Man," none other than the 
exalted and glorified Christ. The appearance of the Christ 
whom John had known so intimately and loved so tenderly was 
striking and significant. His long robe fastened about the 
chest with a golden girdle bespoke his priestly dignity and 
princely power. The transparent whiteness of his head and 
hair, as white as wool and snow, reminds us of his glory upon 
the mount of transfiguration and symbolizes his purity and 
majestic splendor. The brightness of his eyes resembled a 
flame of fire and gave force and expression to his face and 
perhaps indicated his omniscience. His feet were like fine 
brass, bright even as molten brass refined and glowing in the 
furnace. We can only conjecture what this imagery means. 
Possibly it refers to his swiftness in serving and ministering to 
his churches. We are reminded of Miss Havergal's couplet : 
"Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee." 
Or the glowing brass feet may refer to his power to trample 
upon his foes and crush the serpent's head with his now invul- 
nerable heel. His voice was as the sound of many waters. 
An attendant angel apparently announced the vision and his 
voice was compared to a trumpet. John is now listening to 
the majestic voice of the exalted, glorified Son of Man himself, 



Lesson XII.] THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. 429 

and while it is sonorous and impressive, it is also musical and 
soothing, like the sound of many waters. 

This majestic, awe-inspiring personage holds in his right hand 
seven stars. They are arranged possibly upon his extended 
palm, in a circle like a wreath or garland. In the last verse of 
the chapter John is informed that the stars represent the angels 
of the churches. But who were intended by the angels? The 
term was doubtless clear to John's early readers, to-day the ex- 
planation needs explaining. Do the angels stand for the 
churches themselves ? This would complicate and confuse the 
symbolism. Or shall we accept the phrase, " angel of the 
church," with the usual signification of the word "angel," as a 
heavenly genius or guardian spirit of the church? There are 
strong objections to this view also. The angels of the churches 
are held subject to condemnation and liable to blame as repre- 
senting the churches. This could hardly apply to angelic be- 
ings. The angels of the churches are certainly none other than 
their authorized christian teachers, their pastors. Bishops in 
the modern sense can not be intended, for Episcopacy had not 
yet assumed sufficient development to render possible the use 
of such a title. But we know that even the earliest churches 
had each its quota of overseers, elders or pastors. 

Out of the mouth of him who held the stars in his hand pro- 
ceeded a double-edged sword. It is difficult to get a clear 
image of what is here presented. "We may think of a shining 
appearance, like a sword, as if it might be visible breath, pro- 
ceeding from the mouth." The meaning, however, is obvious 
from other references. In II Thessalonians ii. 8, Paul says, 
referring to the lawless ones : "whom the Lord shall consume 
with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the bright- 
ness of his coming." Revelation ii. 16 is of kindred import. 
In Ephesians vi. 1 7, the word of God is spoken of as the sword 
of the spirit, and in Hebrews iv. 12 it is declared to be sharper 
than a two-edged sword. The symbolism of the sword pro- 



430 THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. [Fourth Quarter. 

ceeding from the mouth therefore indicates the power of Christ's 
word and truth, which is destined to further whatever is good 
among men and to overthrow all evil. 

Following the detailed description, the vision concludes by 
indicating the general effect of Christ's appearance. "His 
countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." The 
sight was more than John could bear. Dazed and trembling 
he " fell at his feet as dead." When Moses came down from 
the mountain where he had met God, the people could not 
look upon his shining face and he was forced to wear a veil. 
We need not wonder that a view of Christ in glory should 
have so powerfully affected John. But he is soon reassurred. 
" He placed his right hand upon me," says the narrator. Up 
to this point possibly John was ignorant who this being was, 
though it was none other than " the Son of Man " whom he 
had known so intimately and between " whom and himself the 
tie had been so peculiarly tender." "Fear not." Voice is 
added to touch and John's trepidation is wholly dispelled. " I 
am the First and the Last." 

The lesson ends with two mighty notes of triumph from the 
exalted Nazarene. " I was dead, I am alive." He was the 
living one, having life in himself, who had once tasted death 
for sinful man. Now he is alive forever more. Death hath no 
more dominion over him. Yea, he hath the "keys of death 
and of Hades." Christ's death and resurrection were repre- 
sentative. He is now Master of Death. He is alive from the 
dead, and all who live in him are destined to rise from the 
dead as he did, and to reign forever with him. 

For suggestiveness, sublimity, and tender pathos this account 
of Jesus in glory appearing to John in solitary exile, is not sur- 
passed in the whole Bible. How deep the emotion and intense 
the joy when John recognized in this majestic and glorious 
being the unmistakable features of his divine friend ! He was 
exalted and clothed with power, but was John's loving Saviour 
still, still Son of Man as well as Lord of heaven and hell. 



Wesson XII.] THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. 43 1 

This lesson introduces us to three objects very important as 
seen from a heavenly view-point : the exalted Christ, the mili- 
tant Church, and the gospel minister. Let us hastily review 
them. 

1. The Apocalyptic conception of Christ. 

On earth Christ was known as the humblest of mortals. He 
was despised and rejected of men. When men saw him there 
was no beauty in him that they should desire him. He had 
voluntarily laid aside his glory, that he might redeem sinful 
man. In his last intercessory prayer, Jesus besought, " O 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was." 

John's vision shows this prayer answered. Christ is glorified. 
His countenance shines as the sun. But he is still the same 
loving, compassionate Christ that once trod the earth. He 
tenderly lays his pierced hand upon John, and banishes his 
fear with reassuring words. The human-divine Christ exalted, 
clothed with majesty and power, still retains his brotherly love 
and sympathy toward men and seeks their salvation. John sees 
him walking in the midst of the golden lamp-stands, viz., the 
churches. He is enthroned, yet abides with his militant people. 
" Lo, I am with you always." And he is in the midst of the 
churches not as an idle observer, but an active helper, familiar 
with the history and work of each, and ready to aid and guide m 

2. The apocalyptic conception of the Church. 

The individuality of the local church is emphasized. Each 
church is complete in itself, as illustrated by the seven-branched 
lamp-stand. In the epistles which follow the vision, each is 
addressed separately and held individually responsible for its 
own work and conduct. Such churches make up the Church. 

Every church is set before John under the figure of a lamp- 
stand or light-holder. Sin is darkness, Christ's gospel is the 
true light. The church is the divinely ordained medium for 
communicating the light, and illuminating the dark, sinful 



432 THE GLORIFIED SAVIOUR. [Fourth Quarter. 

world. Paul speaks of the Philippian Christians as " children 
of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, 
among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the 
word of life." "Ye are the light of the world." Sinful and 
dark our world is. Many are groping. " Let the lower lights 
be burning." Trim your flickering lamps ; look well to the 
supply of oil ; bear aloft the gospel light, until the darkness of 
sin is banished, and the full orbed day appears. 

3. The apocalyptic conception of the ministry. 

John saw seven stars. These were the angels or ministers of 
the churches, — the pastors. The stars were in the hand of 
the glorified Redeemer. They were his possession. A true 
minister is God's man. He has placed himself in God's hands 
to obey and serve and be used as God shall dictate. Paul 
spoke of himself as the bond-servant of Christ, who was his 
Master and Owner. But the conception includes more than 
this. Isaiah employs the same imagery to express God's love 
and interest. " I have graven thee upon the palms of my 
hands." Christ holds his ministers as jewels in his right hand ; 
a position of safety and honor. They are not only his possess - 
sion, but also his beloved. 

In the epistles which follow the vision, the angels of the 
churches act as interpreters of the divine message to the 
churches. This was the chief function of the Old Testament 
prophet. He doubtless foretold future events, but his real 
office was to reveal to the people the mind and will of God as 
discovered in passing events. According to John's vision, the 
pastor is still a prophet, in the same sense. God still speaks to 
his Church through his ministers. It is still the duty of the 
christian minister, as a modern prophet, to live close to the 
throbbing heart of the exalted Christ, and having discovered 
his will, to deliver it warm and living to his people. 



(essoij /III. December 24, 

[Missionary Lesson.] 



THE GREAT INVITATION. 

Revelation xxii : 8-21. 
By Rev. PRESCOTT F. JERNEGAN, Middletown, Conn. 

THE Alps are best viewed not from either extremity of the 
range, from the cloud-veiled summit of the highest peak, 
or from the hill- encircled base of the lowest, but from 
Mount Righi, near their centre. Thus the seventeenth verse 
of this chapter is the best point of view from which to interpret 
the whole. The preceding verses anticipate its approach ; the 
following justify its presence. The morning and the evening 
twilight are best explained by the noon-day Sun. " Worship 
God " is the heralding note of the Great Invitation ; " surely 
I come quickly " is the significant postscript to the King's call. 
In the study of this noble passage, note 



I. THE EREENESS OF THE GOSPEL INVITATION. 

Herein is the marvel of the gospel. Not that it is an invi- 
tation ; invitations are common. Not so much that it is pro- 
miscuous ; whole nations have been invited to advantageous 
alliances. The chief wonder of this summons is not even that 
its promise is life ; life was offered before, but on very arduous 
conditions. "This do," viz., every detail of the law, "and 
thou shalt live." Evangelical salvation is the first world-wide 
gift that costs only the taking. 

28 



434 TiiE GREAT INVITATION. [Fourth Quarter. 

Ever since the gospel interpreted Isaiah's foreshadowing of 
this promise it has been an axiom that the water of life is with- 
out money and without price. Ever since Peter said to Simon 
Magus : " Thy money perish with thee because thou hast 
thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money," 
wealth has been regarded as a hindrance rather than a help to 
the acquisition of a Christian's hope. It is free or it is noth- 
ing. No debt of purchase-price is outstanding. " Jesus paid 
it all." 

But, strangely enough, the gospel is hindered less by those 
who still strive to pay a price for salvation than by those who 
accept this as free but mistake the nature of its freeness. The 
remark, " It costs nothing to become a Christian," indicates 
almost infallibly that its author entirely misconceives the col- 
ossal gratuity of which he speaks. 

To say that the gospel is free is to say, first, that it is not 
purchased, does not come in the way of any commercial 
return whether for money or for hard and taxing deeds. But 
it is the wildest defiance of reason to infer from this that only a 
tenth of our income and a seventh of our time ought to be at 
the disposal of the Master. The gospel is free in that its value 
cannot be measured in gold or its blessings gotten in a mer- 
cantile way. But the possession of it does not free the pos- 
sessor from the obligation to devote both himself and his sub- 
stance to God's cause. 

A New York City club makes it an essential condition of 
membership that the applicant's ancestors shall have resided in 
the city for at least a century. Money cannot buy admission 
to that company, yet he who joins will freely spend money 
therefor. It costs nothing to enter, but much to stay. 

Entrance to Victoria's court is granted freely if at all. The 
queen's favors are not for sale, but he who sees her pays his 
penny often over. Money is not the qualifying condition, 
though the fees amount to five hundred dollars. 



Lesson XIII.] THE GREAT INVITATION. 435 

So the gospel costs nothing, not because nothing is to be 
spent in its service, but because nothing can be an equivalent 
for the benefit it brings. Its price is beyond rubies, but he who 
embraces it cannot thereafter hoard his jewels. The chapter 
that bids us " take the water of life freely " offers the right to 
the tree of life to those who " do Christ's commandments." 

The gospel is a free gift, calling for a free gift in return. In 
this sense it costs everything. The idea of payment whether 
of wealth or of personal service involves the thought of giving 
a portion of our substance or ourselves to obtain something 
less valuable than we because purchased with a part only of 
what we have or are. But to give the whole of wealth and of 
self, as one must to be a Christian, is not to purchase ; it is 
absolute surrender. We cannot buy the water of life ; we must 
" take " it if we have it at all. A man is more than his wealth ; 
the gospel is greater than self. It costs nothing because it 
costs all. 

Still is salvation free, because its price, in this only sense in 
which it bears a price, is in every man's possession. Were the 
price something external to the soul the gospel would be far 
from free. The external has neither unity nor universality. 
The endless catalogue of " things that are seen " embraces not 
one that is within the reach of all. If any gift of civilization 
were required in order to salvation the heathen world would at 
once be excluded. To ask a man to give for the water of life 
what he cannot get, however small the consideration, were to 
place a prohibitory tariff on the gospel. Better ask all of 
every man than to ask inferior but unacquirable gifts of any. 
In no other fortune or estate are human beings so alike, so 
equally well off, as in simple selfhood. A man's fellow-being 
may have a mortgage on his property, but not on the man him- 
self. A man may have given his goods for other treasures than 
those of the gospel, but he has himself left. He may have 
abused himself till he is a battered fragment of what he once 



43^ 



THE GREAT INVITATION. [Fourth Quarter. 



was ; he has an immortal soul with all its stores of affection 
still in his keeping. He needs but to give himself, whether he 
be much or little, and the water of life is his. 

It is his "freely," because more valuable than himself; 
" freely " because given for his easiest obtained possession ; 
"freely," last and best, because in giving himself he finds 
himself. To give other things than self we must part with 
them. To give one's self to Jesus is to find one's self. " Who- 
soever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his 
life for my sake shall find it." That the water of life is free 
because it costs all is a paradox. That in giving self we regain 
self, saved, bettered and enlarged, is the paradox explained. 

Here is a strong missionary incentive. The freeness of the 
gospel is the reason why there need be no waiting for the 
heathen to secure preliminary equipment of wealth, learning, or 
rectitude before we bear them our message. Their need is 
their qualification. Observe 



II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE INVITATION. 

" Come," is its unqualified bidding. Other commands have 
been to individuals or at most to nations j this command 
traverses the globe and the centuries, encountering no limitation 
of nation, sex, color, condition or time to turn its welcome to 
rebuke. 

" Let the Spirit say, Come," gives the invitation a very broad 
sweep. But the question of the Spirit's " effectual calling " 
suggests a possible limitation. Hence the " bride," too, is to 
say, Come ; the Church gives its world-wide call. But the 
Church has not always welcomed every one. Its missionary 
zeal is but kindling after nineteen centuries. The invitation 
must be more widely heralded. So the hearer, whoever he 
may be, is to say, Come, whether the Church sanctions his 
preaching or not. William Carey is to say, Come, even if 



Lesson XIII.] THE GREAT INVITATION. 437 

Ryland snarls, " You are a miserable enthusiast." Mr. Moody 
is to say, Come, even if regularly ordained clergymen would 
dissuade him. The Church may object to audience or 
to preacher; never mind. Every hearer's mission is to say, 
Come. Every agency that can be enlisted is to assist in the 
proclamation of this universal invitation. 

But as Church and hearer both may be unfaithful, an added 
message issues, addressed directly to its objects. " Let him 
that is athirst come." Any one's thirst for salvation proves 
that salvation is meant for him. They at least are elect who 
elect. And if there is one yonder on the margin of the crowd 
who is not exactly thirsty yet would rather drink than not, 
with some desire, some will in the matter, he too is asked and 
urged. " Whosoever will, let him come." Not a soul on 
earth is left out. " Whosoever will." There is no exclusive- 
ness about that invitation. If any are excluded it is because 
they exclude the invitation. 

If doubt could still linger whether " whosoever " means all 
or only a few, the character and work of him who issues the 
invitation would silence the last possible query. These words 
are the testimony of Jesus, whose reward is with him to give to 
every man according as his work shall be. He who judges all 
must invite all ; he who tests the work of each by an exalted 
standard cannot refuse to any the possibility of conformity to 
that standard. He is the " Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
and the end, the first and the last." Such a one will be far- 
seeing enough to view the whole race in his prevision, powerful 
enough to include all in his provision. His vision is not so 
piercing as to see a want which his strength cannot supply. 
He is the first and the last ; every son and daughter of Adam 
falls under his eye. He is the " root and the offspring of 
David," our brother ; all the interests of humanity are precious 
to his heart. He is the " bright and morning star ;" all the 
resources of the Godhead his hand wields. By nature and by 



438 THE GREAT INVITATION. [Fourth Quartkr. 

work he is qualified and he is prompted to welcome the entire 
race to drink from the living stream that all Humanity's thirsty 
sons cannot drain. Blessed be God, the face of Jesus is not 
that of a clique's master. All will not follow him, but all may 
if they will. He sounds forth a universal invitation. 

Here is a second urgent missionary motive. The univer- 
sality of the Lord's invitation should cut the nerve of all dis- 
pute about the condition of the heathen, past or present, living 
or dead. The invitation is universal in our Master's intent ; let 
us make it so in fact. Whether the freedom from responsi- 
bility which the heathen enjoy through absence of light, will 
make their destiny darker or brighter than ours it is hard to 
say certainly, but of one thing we are sure : they lack the 
knowledge of the Great Invitation which we have, and which 
they may have if he that heareth will say, Come. 

We have still to consider 

III. THE RESULT OF ACCEPTING THE INVITATION. 

" Life " is the word in which crystallize man's dearest hopes. 
Nor ought we to think that by " life " the gospel means less 
than the deepest and most real content which we attribute to 
life. Not physical life is offered, if regeneration of body be 
meant, but life as a divine power, participation in God's like- 
ness, purity, knowledge, self-mastery, spiritual insight, the incor- 
poration in ourselves of all that is true and beautiful and good. 
These qualities equip one for all the storm and stress that assail 
mortals here below, and fit him for a residence eternal in the 
heavens. Taking the word in this profound and true sense, 
man can have no deeper need than life. Age and pain are 
crowding inch by inch limbs feeble at their prime into the 
narrow house. With one foot in the grave and the other on 
crumbling sands, man baffles, through the hope of eternal life, 
the woes of the present brief span of existence. 



Lesson XIII.] THE GREAT INVITATION. 439 

Other remedies serve only to prove that here death is 
mightier than life. The gospel has a surer efficacy. It robs 
our earthly sojourn of half its terrors by bidding us expect 
them, and draws the sting of the other half by the promise of a 
perfect and painless life when He shall come who is himself the 
Life. The gospel does not assure us of freedom from pain here, 
but of ability to bear it. The gospel does not offer India or 
Africa " silver or gold," but it does bid their children enter 
into spiritual life. Life is man's true fortune, not painless 
limbs or exhaustless treasure. Life is substance indeed, the 
eternal gold. Life is what man most deeply needs : the gospel 
fills this need. 

The necessity which the gift of life satisfies is as general as it 
is deep. America has more light than Asia, but not equally as 
much more life. The spread of civilization is not by itself life ; 
the progress of education is not life ; mere knowledge of the 
gospel is not life. Only the personal knowledge of God is life. 
Differences of race, social advancement, intellectual discern- 
ment and religious knowledge are not perceptible beneath the 
shadow of the one pre-eminent need. Our different estimates 
and treatment of the Anglo-Saxon and the African are not 
justified in view of their fundamental common destitution, which 
places them on practically the same level before God. The 
boast of the American over the Asiatic is like boast of butterfly 
over caterpillar. One flies where the other walks, but they are 
alike frail and transitory, and neither can raise itself to the sky. 

The need of life is as permanent as it is deep and universal. 
Here more than before the equality of men appears. Satisfy 
permanently this requirement, endow a man with immortality, 
and, were the difference what it seems, the start one gets of 
another in this bit of eternity called life is not worth mention- 
ing. A ship's length is not a large lead for a vessel that is to 
race another around the globe. The man born the day before 
his cousin does not always surpass him at fifty. The threshold 



44-0 THE GREAT INVITATION. [Fourth Quarter. 

of the other life will hardly be crossed before many a Telegu 
or Karen has equalled or surpassed the European or American 
who counts himself worth in all respects a thousand fold the 
savage. None can say whether Judson's first convert may not 
in the light of eternity outshine even that wise and good man 
from whom he first learned of Christ. The gifts of civilization 
that conceal for a day the essentially equivalent values of the 
Western and the Oriental, will pass away when the spirit 
becomes homeless and souls awake in a rational world. 

Here is a third stimulus to missionary endeavor. The 
promise of life answering the one deepest universal and per- 
manent want of man makes the heathen so our brothers in 
equality of distress and possibility of development that all dis- 
tinctions of race and culture between them and ourselves 
should be forgotten. If the dark horde of the unevangelized 
were white, cultivated and intimately related to us, what an 
exodus of men and money there would be on their behalf. 
But the differences in color, culture and blood are more insig- 
nificant in God's sight, compared with our fellowship in the 
lack of spiritual life, than to the aeronaut the variant hues and 
sizes of lichen and oak miles below. All are the children of 
God, though far from him. All have some sense of this dis- 
tance, and desire to lessen it. All must perish if the chasm is 
not bridged. For all a living way of access to the Father has 
been provided in the atonement of Christ. In this community 
of poverty and of possibility is the motive that should give 
impetus to work among the distant, the degraded, the hard to 
win. Canon Taylor may mock at small results among so-called 
worthless tribes ; but among God's children, for whom Jesus 
died, there are no worthless tribes. The value of the heathen 
is to be judged in view of the possibilities of their development 
in another world. To them, too, as well as to the more favored 
children of our race, be the heavenly message rung forth. 
" Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." 



pitertyative 1^5509 Jflll. December 24, 

[Christmas Lesson.] 



THE BIRTH OF JESUS. 
Matthew ii: i-ii. 

By Rev. H. W. PINKHAM, Bridgeport, Conn. 

BEAUTIFUL and instructive is the story of the wise men 
who came to do honor to the infant Messiah. The 
evangelist outlines a picture which well repays patient, 
sympathetic study. The center of the picture is the Christ. 
A light from heaven seems to shine upon him. The wise 
men worship him. In the dark background appears Herod's 
evil face. 

THE WISE MEN. 

Imagination has delighted to add to the sacred narrative. 
Tradition makes the wise men three in number, representative 
of the periods of life \ one a ruddy, beardless youth, another 
in the prime of life, the third hoary with age. Real knowledge, 
however, is limited to this, that they were " Magi from the 
East." Magi was the name given by the Babylonians, Per- 
sians, and others, to the learned, priestly class. "Astrologers " is 
its best equivalent here. The wise men believed that human 
affairs are controlled by the heavenly bodies. An extraordinary 
appearance in the sky was supposed to indicate some remark- 
able event in human history. 

Ancient historians declare that the Jewish Messianic ex- 
pectation was widespread and shared by many peoples. 



442 THE BIRTH OF JESUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

Throughout the East there prevailed a strong conviction that a 
powerful monarch would arise in Judea and gain dominion over 
the whole world. The wise men thought that the " star " an- 
nounced the birth of this expected king of the Jews. They 
journeyed westward to do homage even in his infancy to one 
whose career was to be so glorious. 

Did they have any clear conception of the real nature of the 
Messiah's kingdom ? The text affords no decisive answer to 
the question. But one cannot think that it was to no purpose 
that God put it into their hearts to make their long journey. 
Doubtless they were granted the privilege which the devout 
Simeon enjoyed because, like him, they had come to recognize 
the need of humanity for some new and mighty uplifting force. 
Simeon was "looking for the consolation of Israel." The 
wise men represented the Gentile world which, no less than 
Israel, was in need of a great Deliverer. They are to be num- 
bered with those nobler souls of heathendom who, spite of false 
religious systems, rise into a recognition of the living God. 
By astrology they sought to discover the divine purposes. 
Astrology was falsehood and superstition. But God graciously 
speaks to men in a language they can understand though it be 
but an imperfect medium of expression. The wise men 
studied the stars. God brought them to the Light of the 
world. He satisfied their half-conscious desires and permitted 
them to behold him who was to bring ' salvation to the Gen- 
tiles. Their experience illustrates God's method of imparting 
fuller truth to those who are seeking truth. And their worship 
of Jesus and their gifts to him seem prophetic of the triumphs 
he was to win in the Gentile world. 

HEROD. 

Even across the Saviour's infancy fell the black shadow of 
human sin. Herod's guilty heart was troubled by the inquiry 



Lesson XIIL] THE BIRTH OF JESUS. 443 

of the wise men. He himself, an alien, had no right to the 
throne of David, and he was ever haunted by fear lest he be 
overthrown. His jealousy of possible rivals had already made 
his palace crimson with the blood of his own kindred. This is 
the penalty every sinner suffers : God gives him up to further 
sin. Herod's life had been a series of appalling crimes. Now, 
in his old age, he would if possible anticipate the fury of the 
Jewish mob that cried, " Crucify him ! " Crucify him ! " 

But in order to accomplish his wicked purpose he hides it 
and feigns sympathy with the wise men. He helps them to 
discover the object of their search, intending to use them as 
his tools. " Bring me word, that I also may come and 
worship him." Not seldom a mask of devoutness covers a face 
distorted with evil. Herod has his disciples. They are those 
who make religious professions in order to further their busi- 
ness or social interests. They are the politicians that avow a 
profound regard for the public welfare and then barter that 
welfare for their own gain. They are the scholars that loudly 
proclaim their zeal for truth while all the time they seek to 
blind men's eyes to truth. 

Christ is the touchstone of human character. In one his 
presence kindles lofty purpose and brings to light latent nobil- 
ity. In another his presence intensifies evil desire and reveals 
a hidden depth of malignity. The wise men welcomed the 
new king and gave him homage and gifts. Herod was troubled 
by his advent and sought to slay him. None understood him 
then as we may now. When one recognizes his true character, 
to refuse allegiance to him is to acknowledge spiritual kinship 
with Herod. 

THE STAR. 

Kepler's calculations show that at about the time of Jesus' 
birth there was a very unusual planetary conjunction, sure to 



444 THE BIRTH OF JESUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

attract the attention of men given to astrology. It was, more- 
over, in a region of the heavens supposed to be especially con- 
nected with the fortunes of Israel. When the same conjunction 
occurred in 1604, there appeared a brilliant temporary star. 
After shining for about a year it gradually disappeared. Was 
this the " Star of Bethlehem ? " And is its appearance periodic ? 
So some have thought. Perhaps the " star " was a comet. It 
is asserted, though hardly established, that the Chinese astro- 
nomical records show that a comet appeared at this very time. 
Whatever the phenomenon, whether natural or miraculous, it 
was the means which God used for the guidance of the Magi. 
In the East they had seen the star. It had seemed to speak 
to them with more than human authority, impelling them to 
travel to Judea to see for themselves what great thing had 
come to pass. Night after night of their journey they had 
welcomed its appearance. It seemed to them a great, super- 
human friend, and they loved to look upon it. Now, following 
Herod's direction, they leave Jerusalem for Bethlehem. Night 
comes on and once more the friendly light begins to beam 
upon them. It seems to go before them and to point out 
Bethlehem as their journey's end. " The star ! " " The star ! " 
they cried, and " rejoiced with exceeding great joy." So may 
we rejoice as we recognize God's presence in our lives. There 
is a great, heavenly Friend who guides our steps. Light from 
the star of Bethlehem falls upon our way. 

THE CHRIST. 

It was only a helpless babe in his mother's arms that met the 
wise men's gaze. What was he that they should bow in rever- 
ence before him ? And why do we celebrate his birthday ? 

Wordsworth expresses the poetic fancy that the human soul 
enters the earthly life, passing through the gateway of birth 
from a pre-existent state of heavenly glory. 



Lesson XIII.l THE BIRTH OF JESUS. 445 

11 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home." 

The poetry is at least suggestive of a real truth. Every new 
human soul is a messenger from heaven, a fresh inlet of divine 
love, another medium through which God reveals himself. 
Who can see the innocence, the joyful trust, the sweet simplic- 
ity of early childhood without recognizing the truth that " Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." Alas, that ever the heavenly 
glory which encircles the child-life should be darkened by the 
earth-clouds of sin ! 

Natural and fitting is it that we observe the birthdays of our 
loved ones. To give them presents is to say, " I am glad you 
are here. This is a token of my gratitude because I have you." 
There are birthdays which whole nations celebrate. We in 
America are grateful that God gave to our country Washington, 
and the day when his life began seems to us a great day. But 
there is one birthday whose celebration is wider than the limits 
of any family, nation or race. The world around there are 
those who rejoice upon Christmas Day and call to mind the 
beginning of his human life who was indeed a messenger from 
heaven as no other human being ever was, who came to earth 
indeed, " trailing clouds of glory." He was " the effulgence 
of God's glory and the very image of his substance." 

Christ expresses God in terms of human experience. Thus 
He is Mediator and Saviour. Man is made in the image of 
God. Something of divine light shines out from every human 
soul. But, alas, that light only feebly struggles through the dim 
and dingy windows of imperfect, sinful lives. Men refused 
to have God in their knowledge and ''God gave them up 
unto a reprobate mind." From the beginning of history until 
Christ came, the faithful historian must paint the experience of 
the race in sombre colors. And the darkest hour was just 



446 THE BIRTH OF JESUS. [Fottrth Quarter. 

before the dawn. When the wise men made their journey the 
world was " effete with the drunkenness of crime." Even in 
Israel, the chosen nation so highly honored of God. while there 
were some righteous and devout, the most were Pharisaical, 
their religion hardened into certain forms, or Sadducean, shar- 
ing with the heathen their scepticism. The fulness of the 
time came at last. Men were feeling the despair of those 
" without God and without hope in the world/' And Christ 
came. God who of old time had spoken unto the fathers in 
the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, then 
spoke to men in his Son. 

( ' The Word had breath and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds. 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought. 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef." 

In Jesus the consciousness of God, which the world had 
seemed to be losing, was clear and strong. His fellowship 
with the Father was unbroken. He did perfectly the Father's 
will. Sincere souls coming within his influence found God 
through him. And this was no accident. God had indeed 
entered into a human life and filled it to the full with himself. 
They who looked on Jesus saw in him more than a Galilean 
peasant. They saw God. Jesus is the most complete revela- 
tion God has made of himself, and we look for no higher. 
•'The Father is greater than I," he said indeed. Always the 
manifestation falls short of the fulness of that which is mani- 
fested. But it is the most perfect revelation possible for human 
beings to receive. Our conception of God must be in forms 
of human thought. God must come to man, if at all, with his 



Lesson XIII.] THE BIRTH OF JESUS. 447 

glory veiled in human limitations. And thus " God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto himself." 

Christ is prophetic of redeemed and perfected humanity. 
That man is made in the image of God renders possible an 
incarnation. The historical incarnation reveals the possibilities 
of humanity. In Christ we see that ideal toward which we are 
bound ever to strive. He is the prophecy of that which his 
disciples may become — aye, and by God's grace sometime will 
become. He came not alone that men might know what kind 
of a being God is, namely a Christ-like Being, but also that men 
might themselves be Christ-like. To the degree in which any 
man is Christ-like, God has entered into his life. Men looking 
at him see God, not clearly as in Christ, but dimly, though, 
it may be, with increasing clearness. Are there many incarna- 
tions then ? Shall Christs be multiplied ? It is enough to say 
that God came to earth in Christ that through him he might 
come to many, and so Christ be " the first-born among many 
brethren." 

This is the great lesson of the Incarnation, that God is in 
humanity. He is in your life and mine. According as we 
let him work and work with him, as Jesus did, he works in us 
and through us, restoring in us his own image which sin has 
marred, by our lives revealing himself to those around us, 
making us the channels along which his love may flow to 
others of his children. 

All this we know because of him whose birthday Christmas 
celebrates. Well may the Christmas season be filled with 
rejoicing. When Christ was born the angel-choir burst forth 
in song. Shall not our hearts echo that song at every Christ- 
mas anniversary? " Glory to God in the highest !" 

We honor the birthdays of our friends by gifts to them. 
They are the tokens of our love. The heart goes with them, 
else they are meaningless. "The gift without the giver is 
bare." What shall we give to Christ on his birthday? The 



448 THE BIRTH OF JESUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

wise men opened their treasures and offered unto him gold 
and frankincense and myrrh. Shall we set apart for him a 
portion of our money? Yes, but only as a sign that all our 
money is his, and that we will use it all for him. Shall we 
devote to him a portion of our time ? Yes, but only as a sign 
that all our time is his, and that we will spend it all in his ser- 
vice. This is the gift we will bring him on his birthday — even 
ourselves, the gold of all our possessions and talents, the frank- 
incense of our hearts' richest devotion, the myrrh of our self- 
sacrificing toils and pains. This is the best celebration of 
Christmas, to give to Christ ourselves. This is the birthday 
gift he desires from us, even ourselves. 



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